In Before We Forget, filmmaker Juan Pablo Di Pace embarks on an evocative journey through time, memory, and unresolved affection, inviting viewers into a story that is as emotionally layered as it is cinematically inventive. Drawing deeply from personal experience, Di Pace crafts a semi-autobiographical tale that resonates with the quiet ache of nostalgia and the questions that never quite fade. The result is a cinematic reverie that unfolds like a set of Russian nesting dolls—each scene revealing another layer of Matias’s past, his longing, and his desire to finally understand what was once just out of reach.
The Argentine director, co-writer, and star uses the medium of film to explore how memory works—not merely as a mental replay of the past but as something active and alive, capable of evolving with time and perspective. Di Pace has spoken about how memories resemble movie scenes. That poetic notion becomes the structural and emotional framework of Before We Forget, a film that elegantly blurs the lines between recollection, imagination, and cinematic reconstruction.
Art Imitates Life: The Director as the Character
At the center of the story is Matias, played by Di Pace himself, a filmmaker caught in the emotional undertow of his own artistic project. We first meet him on the final day of shooting his movie, in a tense standoff with his producer, Paulo (played with restrained exasperation by Juan Cruz Márquez de la Serna). Matias is insistent on one more take—a crucial scene in which a character based on his younger self reaches out to touch the face of another character, representing his teenage love. To Matias, this simple gesture holds monumental emotional weight, a symbolic act of courage and vulnerability. But the production is already six hours overtime, and Paulo knows the crew has had enough. Despite Matias’s protest, the wrap is called. The moment—at least for now—is lost.
This unfinished touch becomes a metaphor for everything the film explores: moments that haunt us, words left unsaid, and emotions we were too young—or too afraid—to express. Matias takes the footage to the editing room, hoping to meet a looming film festival deadline. But what he finds there isn’t clarity or closure; instead, he is swept deeper into the emotional vortex of his memories. As he confesses to Paulo, “I thought that working on it, [the memories] would lose intensity, but it’s the opposite.” Every frame, every edit, only sharpens the ache of the past.
Echoes Across Time: Three Versions of the Past
The film’s structure mirrors Matias’s fragmented emotional state. His memories manifest in three distinct forms: traditional flashbacks, clips from the film-within-the-film, and home videos recorded by Paulo during their teenage years. These visual layers create a fascinating interplay of perspectives—how things were remembered, how they are artistically reimagined, and how they were actually documented.
The “real” home movies—grainy, intimate, and untouched—carry a different emotional charge. Unlike the stylized flashbacks or scripted scenes, these recordings serve as a raw, unfiltered glimpse into Matias’s youth. They raise the poignant question: Can the present self see something in those old images that the younger self missed? Or worse, chose to ignore?
The credits layer yet another dimension onto this idea by showing actual home videos from Di Pace’s own life. It’s a touching, metafictional gesture that reveals the personal stakes behind the story. We’re not just watching Matias come to terms with his past; we’re watching Di Pace wrestle with his own.
Italy, Adolescence, and the Allure of Alexander
Flashbacks take us to Italy, where a young Matias (played with understated charm by Santiago Madrussan) arrives at the United World College of the Adriatic. The journey begins in a cushy van, a cocoon that soon bursts open to reveal a chaotic world of flamboyant students and cultural overload. The new students are greeted with overwhelming enthusiasm by upperclassmen—bold, eccentric, and immediately welcoming. One such moment sees Matias reluctantly dragged on stage during a talent show. Coaxed into performing, he dances an impromptu tango, earning raucous applause. It is here that Alexander (Oscar Morgan), a magnetic Swedish student, introduces himself, calling Matias “Fred Astaire” and insisting that they become friends.
From the moment Alexander enters the frame, the air seems charged with possibility. He is everything Matias is not: confident, playful, privileged, and effortlessly charismatic. With his tousled blonde hair and quick wit, Alexander exudes a kind of golden-boy energy that both entrances and confounds the shy Argentinian. Morgan plays him with a delicate balance of bravado and vulnerability, making it easy to see why Matias falls so hard and so fast.
This isn’t a coming-out story in the conventional sense. Rather, it’s a portrait of first love as a mystery—an emotional riddle with no clear answers. Matias is too inexperienced to name his feelings and too hesitant to act on them. Alexander’s intentions remain ambiguous throughout, leaving Matias (and the audience) unsure whether his gestures are romantic, friendly, or somewhere in between.
A Prank, a Farewell, and an Invitation
The school idyll comes to a sudden halt when a prank gone wrong leads to Alexander’s expulsion. Without warning, he’s sent back to Sweden. Matias is devastated. But not long after, he receives a surprising invitation: an offer to visit Alexander during the Christmas holidays, complete with airfare. This small but potent act reignites Matias’s hope. Perhaps, away from the prying eyes of school, things could finally become clear.
The visit is warm but confusing. Alexander’s parents are gracious hosts, and his sister Katherine (Julia Bender) is visibly smitten with Matias. Alexander, on the other hand, is distant—cooler than before. Is he overwhelmed by the approaching military school? Jealous of his sister’s affection? Or is the dynamic between him and Matias simply changing in ways neither can articulate?
The ambiguity persists, and Matias returns home with more questions than answers. For years, he carries the weight of that unresolved relationship, that lingering “what if.” The ache doesn’t fade; it deepens, becoming something like a splinter in the soul—painful but oddly comforting in its permanence.
Present-Day Invitations and Emotional Reckonings
Decades later, Matias is surprised to receive another invitation—this time from Katherine, now an adult played by Krista Kosonen. She’s getting married and wants Matias to attend the wedding. Alexander will be there. It will be the first time they’ve seen each other in over 20 years.
Matias, now a seasoned filmmaker but still emotionally adrift, is thrown into turmoil. Should he go? What will he say? Will seeing Alexander bring closure or reopen old wounds?
Di Pace is quietly compelling as the adult Matias—wry, weary, and vulnerable. Though best known for lighter fare like Fuller House and Hallmark movies, he delivers a nuanced performance that captures the slow burn of regret and the restless search for meaning. His Matias is a man shaped by the things he couldn’t say, the feelings he couldn’t express, and the scenes he could never quite finish—until now.
Subtle Symmetries and Symbolic Echoes
One of the film’s most beautiful touches is its visual symmetry. Matias rides in similar vans at different points in his life, evoking the cyclical nature of memory. The invitations from Alexander and Katherine, though decades apart, are printed on the same stationery—featuring a sketch of their family home, which itself remains unchanged through the years. These quiet details underscore one of the film’s core themes: memory isn’t static. It evolves, reflects, and refracts based on where we stand in the present.
The difference between “what happened” and “what it meant” becomes crucial. The past isn’t just a sequence of events—it’s a narrative we constantly rewrite, hoping to understand ourselves better through the retelling. Di Pace and co-writer/co-director Andrés Pepe Estrada understand this intimately, and their direction leans into mood over plot, allowing emotion to drive the story forward.
Family, Support, and the Healing of Time
Among the film’s most moving scenes is one involving Matias and his parents after the Christmas visit. They apologize and open up to their son in a way they never had before. It’s a quiet moment, but it pulses with sincerity and emotional generosity. In contrast to Matias’s confused relationships with Alexander and Paulo, this moment of parental acceptance offers a rare balm—unconditional love, finally spoken aloud.
In the present day, another scene between Matias and his mother overflows with a tenderness that feels hard-won. Her presence offers a sense of emotional anchoring Matias has long lacked. It becomes clear that the journey he’s on isn’t just about Alexander or the past—it’s about reclaiming his voice and his agency in relationships, something he’s been denied by circumstance, fear, and silence.
An Ending—and a Beginning
As the film approaches its conclusion, the pace quickens, echoing Matias’s own scramble to finish his film in time for the festival. The rushed editing process leaves certain narrative strands slightly underdeveloped, but in a sense, this works thematically. Life rarely offers perfect closure. We edit our memories constantly, but the raw footage remains, messy and unresolved.
What Matias ultimately finds isn’t so much an answer as an emotional release. The moment he was denied during filming—the touch that would have signaled love, courage, and clarity—finally finds expression. In recreating that lost gesture on screen, Matias reclaims his past and rewrites his emotional history. It is a moment of grace, uniting art and memory, illusion and truth.
Conclusion: The Truth Inside the Frame
Before We Forget is a poignant meditation on love, memory, and the cinematic nature of personal history. Juan Pablo Di Pace has created a film that doesn’t just reflect his past—it refracts it, offering viewers a deeply personal yet universally resonant portrait of longing and emotional reckoning. Through its layered structure, gentle performances, and evocative visual motifs, the film reminds us that while we may never fully understand the past, we can still shape its meaning—and perhaps, in doing so, begin to heal.
