Set in the Pyrénées on the French/Spanish border, Former Times follows Julien and Marc, two men in their late sixties who meet at a café after the death of a woman they both once loved. Their conversation moves easily at first, circling shared memories and familiar disagreements. Gradually, it becomes clear that they remember not only different details, but different versions of the same life.

The woman, Sylvie, appears only through recollection and a diary she left behind. Her writing does not resolve the men’s differences or offer a definitive account of the past. Instead, it quietly reframes it, revealing a life shaped by political upheaval, secrecy and a learned distrust of permanence.

Former Times doesn’t offer revelation or reconciliation. Rather, it observes how memory persists after meaning has expired, how love survives without authority and how people outlive the historical moments that once defined them. Told with restraint, dry humour and long stretches of silence, the story belongs to a European tradition of cinema in which conversation replaces action and absence carries weight.

Ultimately, Former Times is a story about survival without vindication and lives that continue after the explanations that once sustained them have quietly disappeared.

Book/Audiobook/Film: 2026/27