“Former Times”

Following the death of a woman they both once loved, two men meet at a café on the French/Spanish border. Their conversation circles shared memories and familiar disagreements, but over time, it becomes clear that they remember not only different details but also different versions of the same life.

The woman - Sylvie, or perhaps Silvia - appears only through recollection and a diary she left behind. Her writing neither resolves the men’s differences nor offers a definitive account of the past. Instead, it quietly reframes it, revealing a life shaped by political upheaval and a learned distrust of permanence.

“I was born in a country that ceased to be soon after my father defected to another country that also fell.”

Former Times reflects on 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.

“I became fluent in endings before I learned how to begin.”

Ultimately, Former Times is a story about lives that continue after the explanations that once sustained them have gone.

Book and audiobook by David Hofberg (coming soon)