Before the Fire
"Before the Fire" is a gripping tale of survival and resilience. Amidst a devastating global pandemic, a young actress's rising career in Los Angeles is abruptly halted. Forced to return to her rural hometown, she finds herself struggling to adapt to a simpler life she thought she'd left behind. Her homecoming, however, takes a sinister turn when a threatening figure from her past emerges, endangering her life and the safety of her family, her only haven in a world turned chaotic.
PRESS
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MOVIE MAKER: How Before the Fire Used Planes, a Burning House and Humvees to Reverse-Engineer the Timeliest Script of the Year
Before the Fire director Charlie Buhler and writer-star Jenna Lyng Adams didn’t have millions of dollars when they started work on their sci-fi drama, but they did have access to a few things they knew could be very cinematic — planes, Humvees, a farm, and a house that needed burning down
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ROUGH CUT CINEMA: The premiere of Charlie Buhler’s Before the Fire feels particularly ominous
With the world seemingly teetering on the verge of global pandemic, the premiere of Charlie Buhler’s Before the Fire feels particularly ominous, taking place as it does in a disease-stricken America that has just passed the tipping point and appears to be in the early stages of catastrophic free fall.
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THE MOVIE GOURMET: When sanctuary brings its own terror
In the thriller Before the Fire, this year’s Must See at Cinequest, the only escape from an apocalyptic flu pandemic is a woman’s long-estranged rural hometown – but the scary family who traumatized her childhood is there, too. Written by its female star Jenna Lyng Adams, and the first feature by its female director Charlie Buhler, this indie thriller rocks.
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AWFJ: Before The Fire’ is a dire warning
Nothing is more terrifying than a film that closely mirrors the current state of the world. Before The Fire hits a little too close to home at the moment. As a resident of New York City, COVID-19 is beginning to get seriously scary. What is your contingency plan if/when a pandemic comes to fruition? Charlie Buhler‘s directorial debut has given the world a not so far fetched scenario and we should all be afraid.
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FRAME IO: A First Feature From Two Fearless Females
“Men are allowed to have all different layers, but as women, especially young women, people are always trying to put you in a box, and it can be limiting to not just your career but also to your emotional and mental health. They’ll project onto you based on the sliver of you they’re seeing at the moment. So don’t let people define you. Don’t let yourself get stuck.”
Directors Statement
The production of "Before the Fire" didn't just encounter challenges; it faced outright impossibilities. Our female-led team battled extreme conditions across several seasons to capture this epic story, in what proved to be both the most challenging and the most exhilarating experience of our lives
The journey officially started when Jenna and I decided to take control of our own destiny. Faced with the impenetrable nature of Hollywood, particularly for female filmmakers, we realized that to seize more opportunities, we had to create them ourselves. So, we sat down and inventoried what was available to us — an airplane, a burning house, military Humvees, a working farm — and we reverse-engineered the story from there.
After completing our script, we gathered our boldest friends and embarked on a journey to South Dakota. There, we received overwhelming support from local businesses, law enforcement, and even the National Guard, who generously provided the necessary resources and assistance we needed, despite our shoe string budget.
It was an exercise in relentlessly pushing forward, and if I learned anything during the filming of “Before the Fire" it was this: the most important part of any production is to populate your film with your strongest supporters. Jenna and I found our tribe in each other, and once we focused on what we had available — we were able to set the parameters and build from there. Our constraints didn’t paralyze us, they sparked our creativity in ways we couldn’t have imagined.
It’s a lesson I hope to carry with me always.
'Before the Fire' went on to earn numerous awards and accolades, including winning Best Feature Thriller at the Cinequest International Film Festival and Best Production at the Harlem International Film Festival. It also was an official selection at the Manchester Film Festival. Thanks to Dark Sky Films, the film received worldwide distribution and is now available on all major streaming platforms