After Link

We have a 3min version and a 25min version of this film

I've watched many films and read many books, but none of them could portray exactly what I felt many years ago, the grief of losing a long-time friend who went missing in the mountains. The not-knowing if he was alive or dead was suffocating, and local folklore that connected spirituality, nature and technology became hope. In 2015, we started talking about travelling the world in a motorhome, pursuing places of inexplicable phenomena. Unfortunately, that never happened. So I made this film for others to relate to, to purge my feelings and fears through horror while keeping this nostalgic feeling of the 90s (a lost generation). In the character "David", I portray my friend, who always took a special interest in these themes, and I hope it pulls you as much as it pulled us.
Please, do not delay your dreams. Do not just stay alive, but live.

This film is inspired by local folklore about mysterious disappearances in our Mountains, in Portugal. We have a shorter version without the horror scene for a wider audience and we also have a longer version of this film (25min).

The idea behind making a film about parallel dimensions is to open to different interpretations and to open the dialogue to mental health and social isolation as well as spiritual and metaphysical experiences. While someone might call it a hybrid genre mixing SciFi and Spirituality, or Quantum Drama and Horror, the main goal is to dive into the possibility of facing death with positivity, as an unlimited journey into other worlds. This film is dedicated to a dear friend who was struggling with mental health and always took a special interest in these themes and I hope it pulls you as much as it pulled us.

AFTER LINK was set dressed by Rebecca Pilkington, well known for working on the Oscar-winning film The Danish Girl and the Eternals, and by our PropsMaster Ilka Selmeckzy known for collaborating on Oscar-winning Poor Things, and Dune. It was written/directed by first-time Portuguese director Catarina De Cèzanne, starring Portuguese actress Sofia Vilar and Ukrainian actor Nazariy Koval, and Swiss Cinematographer Frank Kallenberg. This film was only possible thanks to a diverse film crew of men, women, non-binary and also neurodiverse professionals. We are also strong supporters of the LGBTQ community, and extremely committed to give opportunities to filmmakers from isolated and economically disadvantaged regions, like ourselves. We were blessed with an international crew of both professional and emerging talents from Spain, Portugal, Ukraine, Brazil, Hungary, The Netherlands, Belgium and the UK. The story of After Link is inspired on a real event when my childhood friend mysteriously disappeared in the mountains 9 years ago. This film symbolizes a dream we always had and was made to honour him, with the hope that one day he might watch it and come back.

Five years ago, when I was studying Cinema at the University,
there were two things that changed me forever. The first one
was when I found out that my boyfriend, who was also my best
friend, had schizophrenia and his memories were drifting away,
including the ones of my own existence. The second one was the
suicide of a colleague, which sometimes I still feel guilty
about for not being there for her.
Writing about it was the only way I could understand how these
two events shaped me, and find peace by honouring those two
people. By exploring the dark recesses of my heart, I wrote
and directed a short-film called “After Link” who I plan to
develop as a feature film in the near future. This story takes
place in the early 2000’s to demonstrate how the ramp of the
internet and modern technology changed humanity, how we are
all connected and yet disconnected from each other, how we
experience more but all feels so unreal. I wanted to make a
film not just about how to deal with grief and loneliness but
also about the loss of memories, the loss of ones existence to
the other, and the guilt of suicide. While the film would
highlight philosophical-existential theories, if it’s possible
to bend reality and that our minds were connected to
everything else and we could interfere with our world, ghosts,
our dreams and the web are as real as the physical world we live in,
and so on, in the long-run, the film is essentially
about a simpler idea:
After Link is a film that tell us that we don’t need to feel
bad when someone dies, because there’s always a place we can
meet again, and that People always stay with us, no matter
where they are or how they left us.