Before It Ends

A quiet folk high school is violently repurposed into an internment camp for German refugees, and the headmaster couple, Jakob and Lis, along with their children, are forced into an impossible moral crossroads. As the school’s corridors fill with strangers whose lives and fates become entangled with the family’s own, small acts of kindness collide with fear, suspicion, and the practical demands of survival. The film follows how each member of the household navigates loyalty, conscience, and the threat of exposure in a community under strain.

Tense and intimate, the story explores the ripple effects of a single decision: to help or to hide from those deemed dangerous. Quiet domestic moments are juxtaposed with the looming presence of authority and the uncertain futures of the internees, creating a portrait of ordinary people stretched to their ethical limits. Ultimately, the movie probes the fragile boundary between compassion and self-preservation, asking how much one family is willing to risk to do what they believe is right.