IUS of Time goes back to Piloña two weeks after its screening at Festival Piloña Alternativa. On Saturday 5 September 2026, at 12:00, the film screens at the Antiguu Balneariu de Borines, in the Especial Curtiometraxes session of La Benefílmica, the Muestra de Cine de Piloña that La Benéfica holds from 4 to 6 September, with peripheral activities on 1 and 5 September.

The screening also comes two weeks after the film won Best LGBTQIA+ Film at the 3rd Power24 International Film Festival in Durban, its first award in Africa and the eighth of its circuit. Between Durban and Borines there is a straight line: the story that travelled to South Africa was filmed in these meadows, in these houses, with this light.

La Benefílmica: taking cinema out of the theatre and into the praos

La Benefílmica is organised by a group of neighbours of the council who work professionally in the audiovisual sector, and is hosted by La Benéfica de Piloña. The stated idea is to take cinema out of the screening rooms and spread it across the territory: half the programme happens indoors, in the Benéfica theatre in L’Infiestu, and the other half outdoors, in praos where the audience is asked to bring their own chair — ¡trai la siella!

The three days are built as three journeys, titled in Asturian: Un viaxe universal (Friday 4), Un viaxe feríu (Saturday 5) and Un viaxe ocultu (Sunday 6), with screenings in Vegarrionda, Antrialgo, Borines and the recreational area of La Cueva. Every session works on taquilla inversa: admission is free and each person contributes what they consider fair afterwards.

The showcase is run with Estamos de Cine, the itinerant cinema service of Muchofoco en lo rural, and counts on Laboral Cinemateca, the Asturias Paraíso Natural Film Commission and, for the Borines session, Borines Manantial de Cultura. Almost Red Producciones collaborates with the showcase by providing IUS of Time for the Borines session on 5 September.

Screening details:

• Film: IUS of Time (IUS del tiempo) · Spain · 2025 · 25 min · Drama, Rural, LGBTIQ+
• Date: Saturday, 5 September 2026
• Time: 12:00
• Venue: Antiguu Balneariu de Borines, Piloña, Asturias
• Session: Especial Curtiometraxes · La Benefílmica
• Dates of the showcase: 4–6 September 2026
• Admission: taquilla inversa (pay what you consider), until capacity is reached
• Organised by: La Benéfica de Piloña

Three shorts at the old spa of Borines

The Borines session brings together three short films tied to the council: Nana Dee (Momo Willet and Marta Sniezek, 2023), Cases (Jandro Llaneza, 2025) and IUS of Time (Roberto F. Canuto and Xu Xiaoxi, 2025). An hour earlier, at 11:00, the same venue opens the exhibition and art market Artistes Beneficos, with works on sale at reduced prices.

The venue is not a neutral choice. The session runs with Borines Manantial de Cultura, in a building known across Asturias for the spa and the mineral water that carry the name of the village. Screening short films there says something about what the whole showcase is doing: using the buildings the council already has, and putting people back inside them.

Piloña, a setting of IUS of Time

A large part of IUS of Time was filmed in Piloña. The shoot used El Chigre, the bar-shop in Biedes; a traditional stable in Sevares; and a 17th-century rural manor house in Biedes, still furnished with pieces from the Napoleonic period, which became the home of Xuan, the older of the two protagonists. Some of the film’s best-known images were shot at the former Cándido San Miguel school in San Román.

The production had the backing of Piloña Town Council, the Asturias Paraíso Natural Film Commission and the Department of Culture of the Principality of Asturias.

A building that was already a cinema

La Benéfica de Piloña was built in L’Infiestu in 1926 as the headquarters of a mutual aid society. For two decades its 400 square metres worked as a theatre, a dance hall, a cinema and a meeting place. The society dissolved in 1946 and the building went through other lives — a sweet factory, a car park — until it fell into ruin.

In 2021 the musician Rodrigo Cuevas, together with Sergi Martí and Nacho Somovilla, set up an association that took the old name, bought the wreck of the building and turned it into a venue for live arts and community work in a council that keeps losing people. Cuevas, born in Oviedo and winner of Spain’s Premio Nacional de las Músicas Actuales in 2023, has put the aim in a single idea: culture is what creates territory. The Asturian language is part of that, which is why the whole programme of La Benefílmica is written in llingua.

A hundred years after the building opened, a film shot a few kilometres away screens under the same project.

Asturian in the detail, and understood everywhere

IUS of Time follows Luca, a young photographer, and Xuan, an ageing cheesemaker who has spent his life hiding his homosexuality under the pressure of a small community. The film is Asturian in its landscape, its work, its silences and its way of speaking, and it has been read without difficulty in places that have nothing to do with the Cantabrian mountains.

Its route runs across five continents and 29 countries, with more than 70 festival selections and eight awards: the Director’s Choice Award at the 45th Thomas Edison Film Festival, Best Cinematography at the 4th Silicon Valley Queer Film Festival, the Piedad Isla Award for Best Cinematography at the 3rd Rural and Mountain Film Festival of Cervera de Pisuerga, the Audience Award of the Asturias section at the 24th Avilés Acción Film Festival, and now Best LGBTQIA+ Film at the 3rd Power24 in Durban.

It has also screened at the 31st Chéries-Chéris in Paris, the 43rd Reeling in Chicago and the 16th KASHISH Pride Film Festival in Mumbai. In Asturias it took part in the Asturies short film selection of the 63rd FICX, the Xixón International Film Festival.

Ahead, the film continues on the Spanish circuit with the Goya-qualifying 15th K-Lidoscopi in Cullera and the 28th Octubre Corto in Arnedo. Before that, it stops at Borines, a few kilometres from where it was filmed.

More information

• Official page of IUS of Time
• Complete list of festival selections and awards
• IUS of Time wins Best LGBTQIA+ Film at Power24 (South Africa)
• IUS of Time at Festival Piloña Alternativa
• La Benefílmica programme at La Benéfica de Piloña
• La Benéfica de Piloña on Instagram
• La Benéfica de Piloña on Facebook
• Watch the official trailer

Cover photo: analogue behind-the-scenes photograph by Elmer Guevara, with Manuel Pizarro as Xuan. © Almost Red Producciones.

IUS of Time, the Asturian LGBTQ+ short film directed by Roberto F. Canuto and Xu Xiaoxi, has won the award for Best LGBTQIA+ Film at the 3rd Power24 International Film Festival in Durban, South Africa. The prize was announced at the festival’s awards gala on Saturday, 22 August 2026, a day after the film held its African premiere there on 21 August.

IUS of Time award details

IUS of Time: first African screening, and a first African award

IUS of Time screened in Durban on Friday 21 August, opening the film’s presence on the continent, and took the award for Best LGBTQIA+ Film the following night. Power24 describes itself as an inclusive festival built around filmmakers and stories from underrepresented communities, and its programme gives a central place to LGBTQI+ voices — a context that sits closely with the film’s own subject: an older gay man who has carried the weight of silence and rumour for decades in a small Asturian village. (The festival and the screening were covered in full in our selection announcement.)

At Power24 the film was also in competition for Best Music Score Film. Its score draws directly on passages from Gluck’s opera Orfeo ed Euridice (1762), a choice we explored in detail in that earlier piece.

The directors of IUS of Time

“That a story so bound to Asturias — to its villages, its landscapes and its way of life — can connect with audiences in places like Durban, Mumbai, Chicago or Paris is one of the most special things about this journey. A story can be deeply local and, precisely from there, find common ground with people living thousands of kilometres away,” say Roberto F. Canuto and Xu Xiaoxi.

For Xu Xiaoxi the South African award carries an added meaning: he studied Fine Arts at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, and the win brings the film to a country closely tied to his own artistic beginnings.

Eight awards, five continents

The Power24 prize joins a run of eight awards and distinctions. Earlier honours include the Director’s Choice Award at the 45th Thomas Edison Film Festival (United States), the Audience Award at the 24th Avilés Acción Film Festival, third place in the Audience Choice Award at the Beijing Queer Film Festival (China), and awards for Best Cinematography at the Silicon Valley Queer Film Festival (United States) and the Rural and Mountain Film Festival in Cervera de Pisuerga (Spain), along with recognitions at the Rochester International Film Festival (United States) and the Goitacá International Film Festival (Brazil).

The journey continues this autumn at two festivals that qualify short films for the Goya Awards — the 15th K-Lidoscopi Short Film Festival in Cullera, Valencia, and the 28th Octubre Corto – Arnedo Film Festival in La Rioja — and, closer to home, at Piloña Alternativa in the Asturian countryside.

Produced by Almost Red Productions with the support of the Department of Culture, Language Policy and Sport of the Principality of Asturias and the Asturias Paraíso Natural Film Commission, IUS of Time is a 25-minute fiction short shot entirely on location in Asturias, with dialogue in Spanish and Asturian.

Discover more about IUS of Time

IUS of Time, the Asturian LGBTQ+ short film directed by Roberto F. Canuto and Xu Xiaoxi, has been selected for the 3rd Power24 International Film Festival, taking place from 21 to 23 August 2026 in Durban, South Africa. The selection marks the film’s first festival appearance on the African continent and brings its international journey to 70 festival selections across five continents.

With Durban, IUS of Time has now premiered in 29 countries, making it one of the Asturian fiction short films with the widest international run in recent years.

Produced by Almost Red Productions with the support of the Department of Culture, Language Policy and Sport of the Principality of Asturias and the Asturias Paraíso Natural Film Commission, IUS of Time arrives in Durban with two award nominations: Best LGBTQIA+ Film and Best Music Score Film.

The film will screen on Friday, 21 August, at the Academy Venue of Southern Sun Marine Parade in Durban, as part of the opening day’s international programme.

IUS of Time at Power24 — screening details

Power24: an inclusive film festival in Durban

Power24 International Film Festival defines itself as Africa’s premier disability-inclusive film festival, with a particular focus on filmmakers and stories from communities that remain underrepresented on screen.

Founded by South African actress Buhle Khumalo, the festival programmes work by women, people with disabilities, rural communities, emerging filmmakers, LGBTQI+ storytellers, young filmmakers and other underrepresented voices. According to the festival, more than 40% of participation is dedicated to people with disabilities.

Now in its third edition, Power24 brings together filmmakers, industry professionals and audiences connected with more than 65 countries. Its 2026 programme includes more than 70 film screenings over three days, masterclasses and panel discussions, industry networking and pitching sessions, sign-language interpretation and audio-described films.

The festival also presents awards in more than 27 categories. Its motto for 2026 is “The Power of the Story of the Voiceless.”

For IUS of Time, whose story centres on an older gay man who has spent much of his life carrying the weight of silence and rumours in a small Asturian community, that focus creates a particularly fitting context for its first African screening.

Two nominations in South Africa

Alongside its Official Selection, IUS of Time has received two nominations at Power24: Best LGBTQIA+ Film and Best Music Score Film.

The first connects directly with a festival journey in which LGBTQ+ festivals have played an important role, taking the film to audiences in countries including the United States, France, Poland, India, Mexico, Brazil, Germany and Bulgaria.

The nomination for Best Music Score Film recognises another dimension of the film: the music accompanying a story built around memory, landscape and the encounter between two generations.

The film’s soundtrack draws directly on Christoph Willibald Gluck’s opera Orfeo ed Euridice (1762), weaving passages from the work itself into the score. The choice is far from incidental: like IUS of Time, the opera turns on only two central figures, and its libretto lets love and death run through the meeting and parting of its protagonists across time, moving from material reality into a more symbolic, mythical territory.

In Gluck, the music carries the emotion beyond what is shown; that same prominence runs through the film, where love, death and the feelings around them matter more than the materiality of the images. The pastoral character of Gluck’s score also finds a natural echo in the Asturian landscapes of IUS of Time.

The awards are part of Power24’s three-day programme in Durban.

From Asturias to Africa: 70 festival selections across five continents

Power24 is the film’s first festival selection in Africa — the continent that completes its journey across all five.

With South Africa joining its international route, IUS of Time has now reached festivals on all five continents: Europe, the Americas, Asia, Oceania and Africa.

Since beginning its festival journey in 2025, IUS of Time has screened at festivals including the 53rd Huesca International Film Festival, the 34th Madrid Film Festival – PNR, the 63rd Gijón/Xixón International Film Festival (FICX), the 31st Chéries-Chéris in Paris, the 43rd Reeling Chicago LGBTQ+ International Film Festival and the 16th KASHISH Pride Film Festival in Mumbai.

The film has so far received seven awards and distinctions, including the Director’s Choice Award at the 45th Thomas Edison Film Festival in the United States, the Audience Award at the 24th Avilés Acción Film Festival, and awards for Best Cinematography at the Silicon Valley Queer Film Festival in the United States and the Rural and Mountain Film Festival in Cervera de Pisuerga, Spain.

A personal connection with South Africa

The South African selection also carries a particular personal significance for co-director Xu Xiaoxi.

Born in Chengdu, China, Xu studied Fine Arts at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in South Africa, where he became the first Chinese student to graduate from the university. He later continued his film studies in the United States, where he met Roberto F. Canuto at the New York Film Academy and began the collaboration that would eventually become Almost Red Productions.

For Xu, the arrival of IUS of Time in South Africa therefore brings the film back to a country closely connected with his own artistic education. More than a decade after Roberto F. Canuto and Xu Xiaoxi began making films together, a story created and shot in rural Asturias now reaches the country where part of Xu’s creative journey began.

A rural Asturian story travelling internationally

IUS of Time (IUS del tiempo) is a 25-minute Spanish fiction short film set in rural Asturias, with dialogue in Spanish and Asturian (amestáu).

At its centre are two men from different generations. Xuan, a former teacher and cheesemaker, lives in an increasingly depopulated village carrying the weight of rumours about his sexuality that have followed him for decades. Luca, a young photographer, arrives in the area while working on an artistic project. Their encounter gradually reveals unexpected connections between two apparently distant lives.

The film was shot entirely on location in Asturias — in the Picos de Europa, the Cabrales cheese caves and across the municipalities of Cabrales, Piloña and Onís, with its two main locations in the villages of Asiegu and Biedes. The landscape and the traditional process of cheesemaking form part of a story concerned with memory, identity, ageing and what remains unspoken between generations.

The film stars Manuel Pizarro and Pelayo Carrizo, alongside Andy Almar and Laura Ubach, and was written by Roberto F. Canuto, Xu Xiaoxi and Enrique Pérez Romero.

The journey continues

The arrival in South Africa comes during an especially active period for the film.

After its August screening in Durban, IUS of Time will continue its Spanish festival journey with appearances at two festivals that qualify short films for the Goya Awards: the 15th K-Lidoscopi Short Film Festival in Cullera, Valencia, and the 28th Octubre Corto – Arnedo Film Festival in La Rioja.

Closer to home, the film will also return to the Asturian countryside with a screening at Piloña Alternativa, an independent cultural event combining Asturian short films and alternative music.

Seventy selections after its festival journey began, a film rooted in a small rural community in northern Spain continues to find audiences in very different places. Durban adds a new continent to that route, while also bringing IUS of Time to a country with a personal connection to one of its directors.

Discover more about IUS of Time

• Official film page
• Complete festival selections and awards
• K-Lidoscopi Official Selection
• Watch the trailer

With nearly 60 international festival selections across Europe, the Americas, Asia and Oceania, IUS of Time reaches a new international milestone with its inclusion in the 10th FeCHA – Festival de Cine Hispanófono de Atenas, Greece’s only festival dedicated exclusively to Spanish-language cinema.

The Asturian short film, directed by Roberto F. Canuto and Xu Xiaoxi, has been selected for the Diversidad 2026 program, a curated LGBTQ+ section organized in collaboration with Athens Pride and focused on contemporary queer stories from the Spanish-speaking world. This year’s edition brings together only four short films from Spain and Latin America, highlighting works that explore identity, intimacy, memory and resistance through distinct cinematic approaches.

IUS of Time screening in Athens

🗓 Date: May 29, 2026
🕘 Time: 21:00
📍 Venue: Rooftop Terrace · Instituto Cervantes of Athens
🎬 Program: Diversidad 2026
🌍 Online screenings across Greece: May 29–31, 2026

The screening forms part of the closing activities of the 10th FeCHA and will also be available online throughout Greece for a limited period through the festival’s digital platform.

See the Diversidad 2026 program at FeCHA Athens Film Festival.

Founded in 2016, FeCHA has become a major cultural bridge between Greece and the Spanish-speaking world, attracting more than 30,000 spectators over the past decade through screenings, retrospectives, educational activities and collaborations with institutions including the Instituto Cervantes and the Hellenic American Union.

FeCHA and the international visibility of Spanish-language cinema

Over the years, FeCHA has established itself as one of the key platforms for contemporary Spanish-language cinema in southeastern Europe, presenting films from Spain, Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Uruguay, Cuba and other countries across Latin America.

The 2026 edition features productions connected to major international festivals and awards including Cannes, Venice, San Sebastián, the Goya Awards and the Academy Awards. The lineup includes films and guests such as Helena Taberna, Albert Pintó, Asier Urbieta and Avelina Prat, combining auteur cinema, social narratives, documentary filmmaking and contemporary queer storytelling within a broader cultural dialogue.

Within this context, the inclusion of IUS of Time reinforces the growing international circulation of queer Spanish-language cinema and the increasing visibility of independent films rooted in local landscapes, identities and cultural memory.

Since its premiere, IUS of Time has screened at festivals including:

— 53rd Huesca International Film Festival (Spain)
— 31st Chéries-Chéris – Paris LGBTQIA+ Film Festival (France)
— 16th Écrans Mixtes Queer Film Festival in Lyon (France)
— 43rd Reeling: Chicago LGBTQ+ International Film Festival (USA)
— 63rd FICX Gijón International Film Festival (Spain)
— 42nd Schwule Filmwoche Freiburg – Freiburg Gay Film Festival (Germany)

Earlier this month, the film celebrated its Australian premiere at the 11th Geelong Pride Film Festival, marking its first screening in Oceania and further expanding its international reach across five continents.

With its growing international trajectory, IUS of Time is emerging as one of the most internationally visible fiction short films to emerge from Asturias in recent years.

Rural Asturias, queer memory and landscape-based cinema

Set in rural Asturias in northern Spain, IUS of Time follows Luca, a young photographer who arrives in a small mountain village to work on an artistic project and develops an unexpected emotional connection with Xuan, an older cheesemaker marked by silence, rumors and prejudice from the past.

Blending rural realism with poetic and symbolic storytelling, the film explores queer memory, emotional inheritance, masculinity, landscape and intergenerational connection. Through Luca’s camera, photography becomes both a narrative device and a form of emotional archive linking past and present.

Shot in locations including the Picos de Europa and villages such as Cabrales and Onís, the landscapes of Asturias become central emotional and narrative elements within the film, reinforcing its atmosphere of intimacy, isolation and suspended time.

IUS of Time was also supported by the Department of Culture, Llinguistic Policy and Sport of the Principality of Asturias, with the collaboration of Asturias Paraíso Natural Film Commission during the film’s development and production process.

The project evolved through an extended creative process that also generated the companion pieces Blow Down and Sunset in Paris, conceived as “Sketches of IUS” during the screenplay development stage. These works allowed the filmmakers to further explore character psychology, visual language and fragmented memory before the final structure of IUS of Time fully emerged.

Through its combination of rural realism, queer storytelling, landscape-based cinema and poetic visual language, IUS of Time is becoming part of a growing body of contemporary queer rural cinema emerging from the Spanish-speaking world.

“The international journey of IUS of Time has shown us how stories deeply rooted in local realities can emotionally connect with audiences across very different cultural contexts.”

— Roberto F. Canuto & Xu Xiaoxi

More information about IUS of Time

Official page of IUS of Time with festival selections, awards and production details.

Watch the official trailer of IUS of Time.

Header image: analogue behind-the-scenes photograph from IUS of Time by photographer Elmer Guevara / Almost Red Productions.

The selection brings together six of the most acclaimed short films linked to Asturias, all of them widely recognized both nationally and internationally. Although Sunken Plum is set in China, the film is connected to Asturias through its director and its independent production model, developed between Spain and China, and was later incorporated into the Laboral Cinemateca distribution catalogue after receiving the Distribution Award at the 55th Gijón International Film Festival (FICX).

As part of this initiative, Sunken Plum will be screened across Asturias in a traveling circuit, with more than twenty confirmed screenings between April and June in different municipalities.

This anniversary selection highlights the role of Laboral Cinemateca in supporting and promoting Asturian filmmaking over the past decade, showcasing works that have achieved a strong presence on the international festival circuit.

Sunken Plum will be screened in more than 20 locations across Asturias as part of this touring program

As part of this special selection, Sunken Plum will travel across Asturias through “La Cinemateca Ambulante”, reaching a wide network of municipalities and reintroducing the film to local audiences.

Sunken Plum will be screened in more than 20 locations across Asturias as part of this touring program.

The screenings are scheduled between April and June 2026 in the following locations:

This extensive tour forms part of Laboral Cinemateca’s 10th anniversary celebrations, bringing cinema to more than 20 municipalities across the region and reinforcing its commitment to cultural access and the dissemination of Asturian filmmaking.

Through this initiative, Sunken Plum not only returns to its region of origin, but also reaches new audiences, reaffirming its continued relevance nearly a decade after its release.

Sunken Plum: a landmark short film in contemporary queer and transgender cinema

Released in 2017, Sunken Plum (original title Chen Li) is widely considered one of the most relevant short films addressing transgender identity in contemporary Asian cinema, particularly for its portrayal of rural China — a context rarely explored in queer narratives.

The film has been selected in over 150 international festivals across more than 55 countries, receiving over 30 awards and mentions worldwide.

Set between the city of Chengdu and a remote rural village in Sichuan, the film follows a transgender woman who, after years away, is forced to return to her hometown following the death of her mother. As the only “male” heir in the family, she must confront social expectations rooted in tradition while being unable to appear as herself in front of relatives and neighbors.

The cast combines professional performers with mostly non-professional actors, contributing to the film’s naturalistic tone while blending social realism with a subtle poetic dimension, creating an intimate and visually evocative portrayal of character and environment.

The film forms the third and final part of the Invisible Chengdu, alongside Ni Jing: Thou Shalt Not Steal (2013) and Floating Melon (2015), a body of work shot in Sichuan and performed in Southwestern Mandarin that portrays marginalized and often unseen realities of contemporary Chinese society.

Developed independently between Spain and China, the project reflects the filmmakers’ ongoing exploration of cross-cultural narratives, blending European auteur sensibilities with deeply rooted local contexts.

Sunken Plum originates from real social tensions, inspired in part by viral videos—later censored—that exposed violence against transgender women in China, grounding the film in a broader reflection on visibility, identity and social control.

Discover more about the film: Sunken Plum

Sunken Plum: international impact and major awards

Since its release, Sunken Plum has achieved over 150 international festival selections across more than 55 countries, receiving over 30 awards and mentions, and establishing itself as a key work within global queer cinema.

It has become one of the most internationally recognized short films addressing transgender narratives in Asian cinema.

The film had its world premiere at the 62nd SEMINCI – Valladolid International Film Festival (Spain), one of the most prestigious film festivals in the country. It later continued its international journey through key festivals, including the 22nd LesGaiCineMad – Madrid International LGBT Film Festival, and expanded globally with its U.S. premiere at the 36th Outfest Los Angeles LGBTQ+ Film Festival and its UK premiere at the 26th Raindance Film Festival, both Oscar-qualifying festivals.

The film was also presented at major international festivals such as the 39th European Short Film Festival of Villeurbanne (France), the 34th Interfilm Berlin International Short Film Festival, the 13th Shorts México – International Short Film Festival, the 29th Istanbul International Short Film Festival, and the 16th Bogoshorts – Bogotá Short Film Festival, among many others, consolidating its presence across the five continents.

In Spain, Sunken Plum was selected at several Goya-qualifying festivals, including the 21st Málaga Film Festival, the 30th Aguilar de Campoo Short Film Festival, the 31st Medina del Campo Film Week, the 16th FESCIGU – Guadalajara International Solidarity Film Festival, and the 30th l’Alfàs del Pi Film Festival, reinforcing its recognition within the national industry.

Awards and Recognition

Sunken Plum has received more than 30 awards and mentions worldwide, including:

• Silver Caravel for Best Short Film – 47th Cartagena International Film Festival (Spain)
• Best Short Film, Best Director and Audience Award – 11th Punto di Vista Film Festival (Italy)
• Best Screenplay – 10th ShanghaiPRIDE Film Festival (China)
• Audience Award & Unilabur Award – 22nd Cortada Short Film Festival (Spain)
• Audience Award – 10th Lobofest International Film Festival (Brazil)
• Best Short Film – Centro Niemeyer LGBTI Film Festival (Spain)
• Best Short Film and Best Screenplay – 6th Brighton Trans Pride Film Festival (UK)
• Best Short Film (Journalists’ Award) – 17th Avilés Acción Film Festival (Spain)

The film has received over 12 awards for Best Short Film, multiple Audience Awards, and several recognitions for performance, highlighting both its critical acclaim and its strong connection with audiences worldwide.

You can find the complete and updated list of festival selections here: Sunken Plum (Ciruela de agua dulce) — Awards & Festivals

A defining work in the filmmakers’ trajectory

Sunken Plum represents a turning point in the work of Roberto F. Canuto and Xu Xiaoxi, marking the consolidation of their cinematic language and their ongoing exploration of cross-cultural narratives between Europe and Asia.

Produced independently between Spain and China, the film reflects their commitment to auteur cinema and socially engaged storytelling, combining intimate personal narratives with broader social contexts.

Over time, the film has become one of their most widely screened works, contributing significantly to their international recognition and positioning within the global festival circuit.

Nearly a decade after its release, Sunken Plum continues to resonate with audiences and programmers worldwide. Its return to Asturias through this anniversary selection not only celebrates its past achievements, but also reaffirms its relevance in contemporary discussions around gender identity, representation, and cultural belonging.

As part of this retrospective, the film is not simply revisited — it is recontextualized as a work that helped shape the visibility of transgender narratives in international short filmmaking.

The filmmakers’ trajectory continues with their recent short film IUS of Time, well received at international festivals, further expanding their exploration of identity and memory. They are currently developing new fiction projects in both short and feature formats, planned to be produced between Spain and China.

Watch the official trailer:

The festival, which opens in Warsaw from April 10–18, 2026 and later expands to other cities across the country, presents a wide-ranging program of bold and socially engaged queer cinema, bringing together international works that reflect contemporary social and cultural realities.

Screening at LGBT+ Film Festival Poland – Warsaw (Kinoteka)

IUS of Time will be presented in the “Gay Stories (Shorts)” program, alongside productions from the United States, Hungary, Singapore and the United Kingdom.

Screenings will take place at Kinoteka (Warsaw):

• April 11, 2026 – 20:30
• April 12, 2026 – 18:30

Across the “Gay Stories (Shorts)” and “Gay Love Affairs (Shorts)” sections, the festival showcases a total of 11 international gay short films. IUS of Time is the only Spanish film in this selection, highlighting its growing visibility within the European festival circuit.

This selection also continues the filmmakers’ relationship with the festival, where their previous works Sunken Plum (9th edition, 2018) and Water Circles Under Cotton Clouds (14th edition, 2023) were also presented.

IUS of Time : a story of memory, identity and silence

Set in a rural village in northern Spain, IUS of Time follows a young photography student who returns to reconnect with his roots and meets Xuan, an aging cheesemaker marked by long-standing rumors about his sexuality.

Filmed in the landscapes of Asturias — including the traditional Cabrales cheese caves in Asiegu (courtesy of Quesería Ecológica Asiegu) and historic rural houses shaped by centuries of history — the film draws deeply from the atmosphere of the Picos de Europa to create an intimate and grounded visual world.

As their relationship gradually unfolds, the film explores silence, belonging and generational distance through a restrained and observational approach.

Produced by Almost Red Producciones with the support of the Principado de Asturias, the film reinforces its connection to the region both thematically and materially.

Learn more about IUS of Time.

Recognition at Rochester International Film Festival (New York, USA)

In parallel with its European festival run, the film has also been recognized at the 68th Rochester International Film Festival, one of the longest-running film festivals in the United States, founded in 1959. This year’s edition will take place from April 30 to May 2, 2026 in Rochester, New York.

The film received an award distinction from the festival’s final judging panel, further consolidating its international trajectory.

This recognition strengthens the film’s presence across the U.S. festival circuit, including screenings and awards at festivals such as the 45th Thomas Edison Film Festival (Director’s Choice Award), where the film is part of the official 2026 touring program, as well as the 27th OUTshine Film Festival, where it had its international premiere and launched its international run, followed by the Silicon Valley Queer Film Festival (Best Cinematography Award), and selections at the 43rd Reeling: The Chicago LGBTQ+ International Film Festival and the 27th Spokane International Film Festival, among others.

Expanding international trajectory

With its Polish premiere and recognition at Rochester, IUS of Time continues a festival run spanning three continents: Europe, America and Asia.

The film is part of the ongoing work of Roberto F. Canuto & Xu Xiaoxi, who have collaborated for over 15 years since completing their Master’s degrees at the New York Film Academy in Los Angeles. Their films have been widely presented at international festivals and are known for their cross-cultural perspective, working between Europe and Asia while focusing on intimate human stories shaped by social context and personal transformation.

The filmmakers are currently developing new fiction projects in both short and feature formats, with upcoming productions planned between Spain and China, continuing their commitment to international collaboration and auteur cinema.

Watch the official trailer:

The screening will take place on Friday, March 20, 2026, at 8:00 PM, as part of the Asturian Short Films program at Cines Embajadores Foncalada in Oviedo.

The festival will take place from March 20–29, 2026, featuring a program that brings together films and activities designed to connect filmmakers, industry professionals and audiences.

Oviedo Film Festival (FOCO)

The Oviedo Film Festival (FOCO) was founded in 2008 as a short film showcase initiated by students from the audiovisual programs of the Asturian educational centres IES Aramo and CIDISI.

Since then, it has evolved into a well-established festival within the Asturian film scene. In recent years the event has expanded its scope, evolving from a regional showcase into a national festival featuring both feature films and short films in competition, alongside various parallel activities dedicated to audiovisual creation.

The 16th edition of the festival will take place across several venues in the city of Oviedo, including Cines Embajadores Foncalada.

IUS of Time, a return to Asturias

The selection at the Oviedo Film Festival also represents a very special return to Asturias for IUS of Time, a short film set in the Asturian countryside that reflects on memory, the passage of time and the bonds between generations.

A story that explores the relationship between place and the shared experiences of different generations, where the landscape and traditional rural trades play a central role.

The film continues its journey through festivals in Spain and internationally, further consolidating its presence within contemporary independent cinema.

Screening Information

The screening is part of the festival’s program dedicated to Asturian short films.

The cast of IUS of Time

The cast of IUS of Time brings together performers with diverse backgrounds in film, theatre and television.

Manuel Pizarro, a theatre, film and television actor with more than thirty years of experience, plays Xuan, a character shaped by the weight of the past and the scars of social injustice. His career has developed primarily in theatre, where he has received seven national awards for Best Leading Actor at various festivals and competitions. His work also includes the film “Mortadelo y Filemón” (dir. Javier Fesser) and the series “Vientos de agua” by Juan José Campanella.

The character of Luca is played by the Asturian actor Pelayo Carrizo, trained at the Asturias School of Dramatic Arts (ESAD). Carrizo has previously collaborated with directors Roberto F. Canuto and Xu Xiaoxi in several short films, including Water Circles Under Cotton Clouds, Blow Down and Sunset in Paris.

The cast is completed by Andy Almar, an Asturian actor and screenwriter who has appeared in several audiovisual productions, including the series “Poquita Fe” (2023), distributed by Movistar Plus+, as well as theatre and television projects.

Also part of the cast is Laura Ubach, an actress with experience in film, television and theatre, known for her participation in the series “Alma” (Netflix) and in the production “Olympo” (2025), also distributed by Netflix.

Filming in the rural heart of Asturias

Filming for IUS of Time took place in several locations across the Principality of Asturias, including the Picos de Europa and the municipalities of Cabrales, Onís and Piloña.

One of the most distinctive locations used during production was the Cabrales cheese aging caves, specifically those of the Asiegu Organic Dairy in the municipality of Cabrales. Inside these caves, where humidity reaches approximately 95%, some of the most atmospheric scenes of the short film were shot.

The crew also filmed in emblematic locations of the Asturian rural landscape, including the bar-shop El Chigre of Biedes in Piloña, a mountain stable in Sevares, and a 17th-century rural house in Biedes preserving Napoleonic-era furniture.

These locations help shape the film’s visual universe, where the landscape and rural traditions form an essential part of the story told by IUS of Time.

You can find more information about the film on the official page for IUS of Time on our website.

Header image: analogue photograph taken during the filming by Elmer Guevara © Almost Red Productions.

The selection represents a very special homecoming for the short film, which returns to Asturias after a strong run on the national and international festival circuit. In late 2025, the film received the Audience Award in the Asturias Section of the 24th Avilés Acción Film Festival and was also part of the official program of the 63rd Gijón International Film Festival (FICX), within the “Asturies Curtiumetraxes” Section, further consolidating its presence among the key showcases of Asturian cinema.

You can explore the full film page for IUS of Time on our website.

Oriéntate Official Selection: cinema, memory, and territory

Oriéntate has established itself as a festival fully devoted to Asturian audiovisual creation, combining film screenings, professional meetings, and cultural activities that highlight locally rooted cinema, intergenerational dialogue, and the development of new audiences.

Within the Official Selection, IUS of Time emerges as an intimate story about the encounter between a young photographer and an aging cheesemaker burdened by long-standing prejudices, where artistic creation and artisanal labor become unexpected bridges between two generations and two ways of inhabiting the world.

Set in the rural landscapes of Asturias, the film resonates naturally with the spirit of the festival, exploring themes such as the passage of time, memory, care, and unspoken affections through a restrained perspective deeply rooted in the territory.

The screening of IUS of Time will take place on Saturday, January 31, 2026, at 6:00 PM, within the Official Selection I, at the Casa de Cultura de Llanes. Further information is available on the festival’s official website.

An ongoing connection with Oriéntate

The presence of Almost Red Productions at Oriéntate reinforces a relationship built over the years. In 2023, the production company participated with Water Circles Under Cotton Clouds which was awarded the Audience Award for Best Short Film in the Oriéntate Section, and later, in 2025, Sunset in Paris was also featured in the Official Selection of the festival.

The selection of IUS of Time in this fifth edition further consolidates this shared journey and underscores the festival’s commitment to a body of work that explores identity, time, and the margins from a sensitive and deeply personal perspective.

Official trailer – IUS of Time (short film)

Image credit: Analogue still from IUS of Time by Elmer Guevara © Almost Red Productions.