Actor Ethan Hawke and director Richard Linklater attend Before Midnight screening in Bucharest

American actor Ethan Hawke and director Richard Linklater attended the screening of their latest film Before Midnight, as part of the Ovidiu Ro charity gala in Bucharest.

The OvidiuRo fundraising gala took place at the Children’s Palace in Bucharest under the moto ”Before It’s Too Late,” to the benefit of the foundation’s project Each Child in Kindergarten, initiated by Maria Gheorghiu and Leslie Hawke, Ethan Hawke’s mother. OvidiuRo needs to raise EUR 140,000 financing for the program in 2013 – 2014.

This was the first premiere of Before Midnight in which the protagonists pleaded for a social cause instead of speaking about the film, said Hawke, who advocated for the importance of early education for children .

The movie screening was followed by a Q&A with the American actor and director Richard Linklater as well as a concert by electro soul and funk band Moonlight Breakfast.

”Before Midnight” is a sequel to Before Sunrise (1995) and Before Sunset (2004), starring Ethan Hawke and French actress Julie Delpy about two people at three different points of their relationship.

In Before Midnight, Jesse (played by Ethan Hawke) is already an established writer. He has two children with Celine, who is at a career crosrroads, considering a job in the governement.

Writing credits for the last two films in the series were split between Linklater, Hawke and Delpy. ”In Before Sunrise, Richard had a clear script but in the second and third movies the three of us wrote from scratch together,” said Hawke.

One of the challenges was creating a real and authentic character for Delpy. ”Celine seems like a real person who can actually walk in the door. Women are often confined to playing shadows and shades of a person,” said Hawke.

Before Midnight is the first of the series to include a scene which includes other actors than the two protagonists. ”It seemed age appropriate. We just thought it would be important to get to know them around other people, their social selves. Couples say something about themselves around other people,” said Linklater.