IUS of Time has been selected for the Official Competition of the 28th Octubre Corto — Festival de Cine de Arnedo en La Rioja, a Goya-qualifying festival. Directed by Roberto F. Canuto and Xu Xiaoxi, the short represents Asturian cinema in the Official Competition and reaches this new Spanish competition with 77 selections, 10 awards and a presence in 32 countries.
The festival runs from 15 to 24 October 2026. The official programme schedules the film for Friday 23 October at 8:30 pm, at Teatro Cervantes in Arnedo and Cines Siete Infantes in Logroño. IUS of Time represents Asturian cinema among the 27 short films in the Official Competition and is the only title in the programme identified with Asturias. The selection brings Xuan and Luca’s story to two screens in La Rioja, within a competition spanning fiction, documentary and animation.
Octubre Corto: a place for Spanish short cinema
Organised by the Asociación Cultural de Vanguardias Arnedanas Aborigen and directed by Chechu León, Octubre Corto combines its competitions with cultural and educational activities. Its relationship with screenwriter Rafael Azcona, who visited Arnedo in 2006, became a defining part of its identity. The 2026 edition marks his centenary and honours actress Luisa Gavasa with the Ciudad de Arnedo award.
For IUS of Time, this context offers a meeting with audiences attentive to performance, writing and the possibilities of the short form. The film’s intimate scale leaves room for gestures, hesitation and the changing distance between two people: elements that gain particular resonance when experienced together in a cinema.
IUS of Time: A journey through Goya-qualifying festivals
Octubre Corto joins a significant group of Spanish festivals in the film’s festival journey: the 53rd Huesca International Film Festival, where it competed in the Ibero-American Short Film Competition in 2025; the 34th Festival de Cine de Madrid FCM-PNR, with an official short-film selection in 2025; and the 15th K-Lidoscopi in Cullera, with an Official Fiction selection in 2026. Our report on K-Lidoscopi also recalls the directors’ earlier screenwriting award there for Sunken Plum.
The film’s Spanish journey also includes other Goya-qualifying festivals, such as the 24th Avilés Acción, where the film received the Audience Award in the Asturias section, and the 63rd FICX — Gijón/Xixón International Film Festival, in Asturies Curtiumetraxes. Both events form part of a sustained presence on Asturian screens alongside the film’s journey across Spain.
An Asturian story finding audiences across Spain
In Asturias, its journey also includes the 11th Cortogijón and the 10th LGTBI Film Festival at Centro Niemeyer, as well as La Benefílmica in Piloña. Beyond the region, the film has found audiences at national competitions, queer film programmes and events rooted in local culture. Its selections include the 28th FanCineQueer in Extremadura, the 47th Semana de Cine de Lugo and the 18th Rodinia International Short Film Festival in Valladolid. It also received the Piedad Isla Award for Best Cinematography at the third Rural and Mountain Film Festival of Cervera de Pisuerga.
This range matters to a film in which rural identity and queer experience are inseparable. Returning to Spanish screens after encounters with international audiences allows its language, landscape and social memory to be read in different ways. The La Benefílmica screening in Piloña brought it back to one of its filming areas; Octubre Corto now introduces it to a new regional audience.
Hands, photographs and the possibility of recognition
In IUS of Time, Manuel Pizarro plays Xuan, a veteran cheesemaker carrying the weight of old rumours, and Pelayo Carrizo plays Luca, a young photographer who arrives in the village for an artistic project. What begins as an interest in hands and traditional craft gradually changes the way each man sees the other.
Manuel Pizarro brings more than thirty years of experience in theatre, film and television to Xuan. A co-founder of theatre company TEG, he has received seven national leading-actor awards at theatre festivals and competitions, as well as Best Film Actor at the fourth GAVA Awards. His credits include Mortadelo y Filemón, directed by Javier Fesser, and the television series Vientos de agua, directed by Juan José Campanella. Xuan brings toughness and tenderness together: a man whose present still carries the traces of a happiness he once had to relinquish.
Pelayo Carrizo, a graduate of Asturias’s Higher School of Dramatic Art, approaches Luca from a different generational perspective. He made his film debut in Roberto F. Canuto and Xu Xiaoxi’s Water Circles under Cotton Clouds and continued collaborating with the directors on Blow Down, Sunset in Paris and IUS of Time. His young photographer’s curiosity meets Xuan’s material world of countryside, animals and traditional craft. Their encounter changes his way of looking and sustains the film’s dialogue between memory, desire and generations.
The film connects the act of looking with the possibility of being recognised. Photography preserves a moment; cheesemaking requires patience and transformation. Around those everyday practices, the story considers loneliness, desire and the emotional legacy of prejudice without separating its characters from the place they inhabit.
Shot in Cabrales, Onís and Piloña, Asturias, the 25-minute film was completed in 2025. Roberto F. Canuto and Xu Xiaoxi wrote the screenplay with Enrique Pérez Romero. Fran Córdoba’s cinematography, Maikel Valdés’s art direction and the directors’ editing shape its visual world. Andy Almar, Laura Ubach, Martina Bueno and Pablo Valdés complete the cast.
Produced by Almost Red Producciones, the film received support from the Consejería de Cultura, Política Llingüística y Deporte del Principado de Asturias and Asturias Paraíso Natural Film Commission.
77 selections, 10 awards and 32 countries
As of October 2026, the production’s updated record stands at 77 selections, 10 awards and 32 countries across five continents. That sustained circulation places IUS of Time among the Asturian short films with the widest international reach in recent years, connecting specialised queer festivals with broader short-film and independent-cinema programmes.
Recent milestones include Best Short Film (International) at the eighth NEXT International Film Festival in India, the Audience Award at the fifth Pillusion Film Festival in Austria and Best LGBTQIA+ Film at the third Power24 International Film Festival in South Africa. The recent Cuenca del Salado selection in Argentina reflects the same continuing movement between cultures. Octubre Corto adds a new chapter within Spain’s short-film competition circuit.
Questions about IUS of Time at Octubre Corto
When and where will the film screen?
Friday 23 October 2026 at 8:30 pm, in the Official Competition programme at Teatro Cervantes in Arnedo and Cines Siete Infantes in Logroño.
Is Octubre Corto a Goya-qualifying festival?
Yes. Its Best Fiction Short Film award is included in the Spanish Film Academy’s qualifying list. An official selection is not itself a Goya nomination.
Who directed IUS of Time?
Roberto F. Canuto and Xu Xiaoxi directed the 25-minute Spanish short, produced by Almost Red Producciones and filmed in Asturias.
Watch the official trailer
Watch the official trailer of IUS of Time on YouTube
