IUS of Time, co-directed by Roberto F. Canuto and Xu Xiaoxi, will make its Austrian premiere at the 5th Pillusion Film Festival, taking place from 26 to 29 August in Pill, in the Tyrolean Alps. Produced by Almost Red Productions, the film was made with the support of the Principality of Asturias and with the participation of Asturias Paraíso Natural Film Commission.
There is a quiet symmetry to this one. IUS of Time is a story about a disappearing rural world — a cheesemaker, an ageing village, a way of life holding on. Pillusion is a festival built in a barn cinema in Pill, a small village in the Inn valley twenty-five minutes from Innsbruck, devoted to celebrating film far from the city. This year its theme is Parallels. Few screenings could sit more naturally under that word.
IUS of Time at the 5th Pillusion Film Festival
Pillusion Festival: A barn cinema in the Alps
Pillusion is not a festival like the others on the film’s journey. It takes its name from Pill, the Tyrolean village that hosts it, and it happens inside a barn turned into a cinema, with a garden tended by the organisers’ family and screenings that run into the alpine night. Alongside the films, the festival runs hands-on workshops in 16mm filmmaking — shooting and developing — and large-format film photography, keeping analogue craft alive in an age of screens.
Created by filmmakers Leo and Marina Decristoforo, Pillusion also grew from a distinctly rural concern: bringing independent cinema to an area where many surrounding towns and villages have no cinema of their own.
It is, in its own words, a festival of films worth the trip. IUS of Time joins Block 4 on the second evening, alongside the short films The Mop and The Rough Skin of the Angels, followed by a Q&A in which the directors will take part remotely from Spain.
IUS of Time and other rural stories, far from the city
IUS of Time was shot entirely in rural Asturias, in northern Spain — in the Picos de Europa, the cheese caves of Cabrales, and villages such as Biedes, Asiegu and Onís, in councils including Piloña. It follows Luca, a young photographer, and Xuan, an ageing cheesemaker who has spent a lifetime hiding his homosexuality under the weight of a small rural community.
That a film about one vanishing rural world should find a home in another — a barn in the Alps, a festival that gathers a village around a screen — is the kind of parallel the film has been quietly drawing all along.
An ongoing international journey
The Pillusion selection adds Austria to a run that now spans five continents and 29 countries. It arrives in a busy month for the film, which has also been selected at the 8th AmiCorti International Film Festival in Peveragno (Italy) and the 7th Kobani International Film Festival (Germany), among many others still to be announced in the coming weeks.
Since its 2025 premiere, IUS of Time has screened at festivals including the 53rd Huesca International Film Festival (Oscar & Goya Qualifying), the 31st Chéries-Chéris of Paris, the 43rd Reeling of Chicago, the 16th KASHISH Pride Film Festival of Mumbai and the 63rd FICX of Gijón/Xixón, and has collected seven awards and distinctions along the way. This autumn it heads to two Goya-qualifying festivals in Spain: Octubre Corto in Arnedo and K-Lidoscopi in Cullera.
More information
- Official page of IUS of Time
- Complete list of festival selections and awards
- Pillusion Film Festival
- Watch the official trailer
