How The End We Start From Showcases a Human Reaction to Environmental Crisis

“We wanted to bring this book to the big screen. The book is so effective because it speaks about a flood – a climate disaster – through the lens of new motherhood. While it remains true to conveying that experience, it is also incredibly scary when you think about it in the face of what’s happening in the world now.” – Mahalia Belo, Director

The End We Start From, both the film and the source material it draws from, makes sure that the focus is kept on the human reaction to the environmental disaster rather than the disaster itself.

“We didn’t want to dwell on images of a flooded Britain as that’s not what the story is about. It’s about how the character reacts to what’s happened in a very intimate time, where she’s not just dealing with a new baby but also the crumbling of her family and the challenge of rebuilding it. As filmmakers, there can be a desire to get into a kind of ‘apocalyptic movie’ box. We didn’t want to do that, yet the film deals with a version of the future that’s very distressing.” – Leah Clarke, Producer

The final challenge in crafting this story was making the main character relatable. Audiences may have been taken out of the story if she was a brilliant action hero in an old-school escapist way. Instead, we have a lead who doesn’t quite know what to do.

“She has to just go with it. It’s about seeing somebody ‘normal’ survive. She’s a pretty privileged character at the beginning. Her family have a safe place, she has a partner and a nice house. She’s in a really good position, but even she can be affected by this terrible situation in a big way. There’s no avoiding it.” – Mahalia Belo, Director

There was some creative filmmaking at play when portraying the flooding itself; keeping it grounded and effective on screen and affordable from a production perspective.

Classically, the portrayal of climate change in film has been relegated to disaster films like The Day After Tomorrow, where the focus is placed on the weather itself and the destruction it causes, with the human characters often being lost in the visual effects’ heavy emphasis on spectacle. The End We Start From took great care in keeping the narrative character-focused.

“A lot of people read the script and thought “how on earth are you going to do this landscape?”, thinking that we were going pull off something like ‘The Day After Tomorrow’. But for us the success was in being more intimate, portraying the character’s experience of the flood – and water more generally – throughout the film. That’s done through the flooding of her kitchen, but also later when she’s swimming or standing in the rain. It’s those shots that as a viewer I find most engaging.” – Leah Clarke, Producer

The shoot coincided with real life flooding occurring around the world, particularly in the UK, and in an instance of art imitating life and vice versa, increased flooding may become the norm for the UK.

“There’s something strange that happens when you’re making a piece of art – you might be predicting something, but this story fitted with something that’s happening now and that’s why we were so interested in making it.”  – Mahalia Belo, Director