Lauren Melinda On 'Before You': A Film That Invites Women To Speak

In promoting her haunting and tender short film Before You, writer-director Lauren Melinda speaks about transforming deeply personal pain into a cinematic act of empathy.

The short follows a couple in the wake of a distressing decision: ending a planned pregnancy. Told with intimacy and restraint, the film explores the often-invisible grief of pregnancy loss and centres a personal reality beyond the political frame. Starring Tala Ashe, known for the CW’s Legends of Tomorrow, Before You gives voice to the journey that often remains unspoken while inviting empathy, reflection, and healing.

The topic of abortion is one of the most politically and socially sensitive, flooded with ongoing debates in both UK and US governments. Melinda’s approach, however, is one of empathy rather than argument. She revealed that her intent was a portrait of love, loss, and choice that resists political reduction. “Art allows us to hold contradiction,” she states. “Policy and politics tend to reduce experience to sides, but stories can contain complexity.”

“Film can remind us that truth is often layered and emotional,” she adds. When we witness someone navigating grief or love, we are reminded that these are human experiences, not arguments. I think that is where empathy begins.

Much of this empathy draws from Melinda’s own lived experience, in particular, her own journey through motherhood and loss. “Holding my newborn daughter brought everything into sharper focus,” she shares. “It made me realise that the loss I experienced years before had not disappeared. It had simply woven itself into my life. Motherhood did not resolve the grief; it reframed it. The film lives in that space where joy and sorrow coexist, where love holds both presence and absence.”

However, the film quickly became something much larger. “The film began with something very personal, but it was never meant to be only my story,” Melinda reflects. “Once I started speaking with other women and couples, I realised how many people carried similar experiences quietly.”

Since its release, the film has gained awards buzz and widespread recognition. Last month, Melinda received the Chaz Ebert Phenomenal Person in Film Award at Cinema Femme, a recognition she describes as deeply affirming. “Chaz Ebert has always championed empathy as a vital part of cinema, so to be recognised in her name feels especially meaningful,” she says. “Before You was made with that same belief […] that empathy can be a creative force.”

What has surprised her most, however, is what has happened after the film began screening. At festivals, community events, and partner-hosted showings, women regularly stay long after the credits to speak, sometimes for the first time, about their own losses or complicated pregnancies.

Melinda describes these moments as some of the film’s most meaningful outcomes. “People stay after screenings to share experiences they have never spoken about,” she says. “There is often a sense of relief in simply being heard.”

“One moment I will never forget happened in Ohio,” she recalls. “A woman came up to me after a screening with tears in her eyes and told me about her own journey. Her story was different from mine, but the emotion behind it was shared. It reminded me why I made the film in the first place; when one person speaks their truth, it can permit others to do the same.”

These spontaneous circles of sharing have become an extension of the film itself: an informal space where silence breaks and collective recognition emerges. Viewers often speak with tears, with gratitude, with the tentative courage of someone finally acknowledged. The film doesn’t give answers; it simply opens a door.

When asked about the intended emotional impact of the film, Melinda answered, “If audiences walk away remembering one feeling, I hope it’s that they are not alone.

“For anyone who has experienced reproductive loss,” she continues “I want them to know their story matters. If the film can be a place where someone feels seen […] a starting point for healing; that’s the greatest outcome I could hope for.”

Visually, Before You bears the hallmarks of a filmmaker fully aware that silence is thunderous. Drawing inspiration from directors like Lynne Ramsay, Melinda builds meaning through sensation rather than exposition. “I have always admired filmmakers who build meaning through what you feel rather than what you are told,” she explains. “For Before You, we trusted atmosphere and movement to carry the story. The camera is close, almost breathing with the characters. Time slips in ways that feel intuitive, like memory.”

That memory-like quality was achieved through a remarkable combination of emotional precision and technical craft. Working alongside cinematographer Ludovica Isidori (Dreams in Nightmares) and production designer Danny Cistone (YOU), Melinda engineered transitions that are felt as much as they are seen. “We wanted the shifts in time to feel emotional, not technical,” she says. “Walls moved, light changed tone, and the actors could step through time in a single take. It created continuity between moments that might otherwise feel fragmented.”

Working with actors Tala and Adam Rodriguez, who play the central couple, Melinda created an atmosphere of rare intimacy. She credits the trust they built through physical and emotional work with movement coach Jean-Louis Rodrigue. “We shared experiences without needing words, which allowed the performances to come from a very honest place,” she explains. “Both Tala and Adam are deeply empathetic and emotionally intelligent artists who understood the script on an intuitive level.”

When asked about future projects, Melinda revealed she is currently developing her first feature film: a psychological thriller, Echoes, with co-writer Iuli Gurbese. The story follows a Persian-American artist in Berlin who faces a Faustian bargain when a Berlin gallery demands she exploit her heritage for success.

“I am drawn to characters who are negotiating identity, memory, and the narratives we build to survive,” Melinda reveals. “The film [Echoes] takes those questions into a different world […] the contemporary art world […] but it is still rooted in the same idea of how truth and self-perception intersect.”

There will be much anticipation for Echoes following the impact Before You. Lauren Melinda has not only crafted a film of haunting beauty but also created a space for collective healing. It serves as a reminder that cinema, at its best, helps us to not just reflect our experiences, but to also reclaim them.