The End of Times borrows its name from the latest universal apocalyptic climate that prevailed on earth a bit too long. The turning of the 21st century was for many a moment to consider the countdown of time, marking the New Year’s Eve of 1999 not only a year, century, and millennium switch but also a widespread fear of doomsday and, consequently, humanity’s collapse. Under this framework, the filmmaking duo unpack depression.

Using audiovisual sources from decades of taped family videography, Salomé (an on-screen protagonist and narrator) searches for the roots of her mother’s chronic sadness. Resolution steps in promptly, with Salomé’s conviction that underlying causes can be attached to visual cues and traced in specific clips. Salomé, who appears as real as the footage she handles, moves on with reconstructing and extracting images, repositioning instances, and comparing footage. The topical political landscape of her first years in life, alongside the tightening of global economic policies and the establishment of free markets, is weighed like gravitational forces next to the characters of the family in question. Her mother, uncles, aunts, and everyone who gathers in Salomé’s grandparents’ house to celebrate New Year’s Eve become universal figures who carry defeated hopes of contemporary history.  

The End of Times evolves like a seamless video essay, with enough humor and cadence to bear a narrative. Halfway through, the intentions detonate across the past and future, forming a present examination of a Colombian family in unrest. Video tapes are altered with geometrical coding and biometric technology, ultimately embedded in AI systems of command. Without assuming artificiality or automation, this hybrid documentary argues the possibility of calculating sadness. How vital and robust!

Now, there is much cultural analysis that links depression and the entrenched claim of mental decline as a global epidemic. Much of it is poignant (see Mark Fisher’s unsurpassed legacy), albeit often oxymoronic and fatalistic. The End of Times introduces a refreshing take (even if the high-pitched synthetic sounds can occasionally feel outmoded). With a solid core, the film explores harnessing and rattling technology (old and new), resulting in an inquisitive reversal of roles toward restoring control and uncovering a future in a better world. Of course, it’s all a fabrication. 

Directors Bibiana Rojas Gómez and Juan David Cárdenas Maldonado (both of whom have backgrounds in critical studies) step in with impeccable oversight of the story they built. There is much depth in political considerations, arranged in time and space in the footage. There is equally philosophical exploration in sync with global dynamics and technological challenges. Ambiguity has also been let in, providing a ghostly air attached to the whole film. Who is Salomé anyway, and whose monitor are we stuck in? Are we discovering a new wave of depression, one that derives from our failure to comprehend pixels? Are digital collections of images another endless night sky overwhelmed by the unknown of stellar constellations?

★★★1/2

Premiered in competition at the 2026 Venice International Film Critics’ Week (Settimana Internazionale della Critica).

El fin de los tiempos, 80’ / Dir: Bibiana Rojas Gómez, Juan David Cárdenas / Production: Luis Esguerra Cifuentes (Bruma Cine), Bibiana Rojas Gómez (A Fuego Lento), Juan David Cárdenas (Allegro Films) / Colombia

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