Hereafter - a new Clint Eastwood movie about life after death

A new Clint Eastwood film that has opened today in the UK and Europe, after a successful run in the US, and just been Academy Award nominated for best visual effects.

The movie, "Hereafter", tells the story of three people who are haunted by mortality in different ways. George (Matt Damon) is a blue-collar American who has a special connection to the afterlife. On the other side of the world, Marie (Cécile de France), a French journalist, has a near-death experience that shakes her reality. And when Marcus (George McLaren and Frankie McLaren), a London schoolboy, loses the person closest to him, he desperately needs answers. Each on a path in search of the truth, their lives will intersect, forever changed by what they believe might—or must—exist in the hereafter.

“Hereafter” is produced by Clint Eastwood, Kathleen Kennedy and Robert Lorenz, with Steven Spielberg, Frank Marshall, Peter Morgan and Tim Moore serving as executive producers.

What happens after death? How can someone so close just disappear? How can those left behind continue to live? “Hereafter” is a drama that explores three characters’ search for answers about their own lives in the face of what lies beyond.

Peter Morgan wrote the screenplay for “Hereafter” shortly after having lost a dear friend in an accident. It forced him to mull the question everyone considers at some point in their lives. “He died so suddenly. So violently. It made no sense. His spirit was still so alive around us, at his funeral I was probably thinking what everyone else was: ‘Where has he gone?’” poses the screenwriter, who also served as an executive producer. “We can be so close to somebody, know everything about them, share everything with them, and then they’re gone and suddenly we know nothing. I wanted to write a story that asks some of those questions. There’s kind of an epic quality to that search.”

“Hereafter” unfolds through the eyes of three individuals in different parts of the world. Though their lives ultimately converge, they begin their journeys alone. Matt Damon plays George Lonegan, a reluctant psychic medium trying to break free from the desperate people seeking one last moment with loved ones that have passed on.