Time Before the Fall

The protagonist, CAMILLA (F 20s) is a director shooting her first feature - a biographical drama about her famous relative, the award-winning director MAC McKaskle (80s) who absolutely does not want his great-granddaughter to make the movie.  He just wants to be remembered for his movies.

Mac is a Korean War veteran and Camilla knows he doesn’t want to re-visit that time of his life but she thinks it is important to show the angst behind his creativity.  But still, Camilla is hurt because Mac is not supportive of her endeavors-either financially or otherwise. He refuses to be part of the process in any way.

That is until he meets KATY, the actress hired to play the role of his wife, Annie,  who had disappeared many years ago.  All agree that Katy looks just like photos of Annie.  Though he denies every possibility that Katy could be related to Annie, Mac can’t help to be interested and reluctantly agrees to go to the set which is the actual house that his wife lived in when she disappeared.  Meanwhile, Camilla wonders if Katy could be a long-lost cousin.

The filming is plagued by supernatural events that are not readily apparent to anyone except for MATTY (60s) who is the daughter of Mac and Annie and grandmother to Camilla.  Matty is very much supportive of Camilla’s goal to shoot the feature.  But Matty, who was age three when her mother disappeared, can’t quite remember the past that Camilla wants to discover. What happened to Annie?  Where did she go?  And most importantly, why did she abandon her daughter Matty thus wounding her for life?

After a series of setbacks and delays which frustrate Camilla, Katy blows her lines through several takes causing Camilla to get progressively angrier.  Matty, trying to recall a past memory,  asks Camilla to just let the scene run the way Katy seems to be stuck on.

When Katy, possessed by the spirit of Annie, begs an unseen Mac not to hurt her,  she is thrown from side to side by unseen forces until rendered unconscious.  Matty regresses to the moment in her childhood when her mother, Annie, was killed and tearfully accuses her father of hurting her mommy. 

Mac, relieved of the burden his dark secret, later confesses that Annie and his best friend Peter are buried there.  He talks of how the boy he was never came home from Korea, how he lost all his buddies there, how he was trained to kill, and how he lost it all when he came home.

Mac asks Camilla if she thinks he will be remembered for his movies.

“Time Before the Fall” is an ensemble piece.  With Shakespearean motifs, movie-making narrative, and shocking revelations:  Matty finally understands that her mother didn’t abandon her and that she is Annie’s second daughter.  Annie's first daughter was adopted and Katy is a long-lost cousin. Camilla has the takes to tell the story.