IUS of Time, directed by Roberto F. Canuto and Xu Xiaoxi, has won the jury award for Best Short Film (International) at the 8th NEXT International Film Festival in Kolkata, India. The recognition brings the film’s festival tally to ten awards and distinctions, with 74 international festival selections in more than 30 countries across five continents.

The winners were announced on 30 September 2026, ahead of the festival’s event day on 4 October 2026. The announcement also celebrates the film’s participation in the eighth edition of the festival, its fifth selection at an Indian festival since its premiere in 2025.

IUS of Time: award details in Kolkata

Best International Short Film at the 8th NEXT International Film Festival

In its award notification, the NEXT International Film Festival team praised the film’s “filmmaking, storytelling, and overall execution,” describing them as “superb,” and said that IUS of Time had truly impressed the festival team.

Based in Kolkata and directed by Indranil Banerjee, The NEXT International Film Festival welcomes national and international submissions across short films, features, documentaries, animation, music videos and other creative disciplines.

Selected winners at the 8th NEXT International Film Festival

The 2026 winners include films from Spain, France, India and Mexico. Among the awards announced by the festival are:

• Best Short Film (International): IUS of Time — Roberto F. Canuto and Xu Xiaoxi, Spain.
• Best Feature Film: Lulaboy — Michael Thomas, France.
• Best Short Film (National): Ragpicker’s List — Chandraveer Singh, India.
• Best Documentary: Rosa Rosa — Alenandra Gracis, Mexico.

Five festival selections in India

The selection at the 8th NEXT International Film Festival builds on an Indian journey that began with the film’s Asian premiere at the 16th KASHISH Pride Film Festival in Mumbai in 2025. That journey continued with the 13th Reel Desires – Chennai International Queer Film Festival and the 4th Utsav International Film Festival in Mumbai, both in 2025, followed by the 10th Out & Loud – Pune International Queer Film Festival in 2026.

Together, these five selections connect the film with festivals based in Mumbai, Chennai, Pune and Kolkata. They form part of a wider journey through independent and LGBTQ+ film programmes around the world, taking a story rooted in rural Asturias into different cultural contexts.

IUS of Time: 74 international selections and ten awards

This tenth recognition follows the Audience Award for Best Narrative Short Film at the 5th Pillusion Film Festival in Austria and Best LGBTQIA+ Film at the 3rd Power24 International Film Festival in South Africa.

Earlier honours include the Director’s Choice Award at the 45th Thomas Edison Film Festival, the Audience Award in the Asturias section at the 24th Avilés Acción Film Festival, and cinematography awards at the 4th Silicon Valley Queer Film Festival and the 3rd Rural and Mountain Film Festival of Cervera de Pisuerga. With 74 international festival selections in more than 30 countries across five continents, IUS of Time has established itself as the Asturian short film with the widest international festival reach in recent years. Its complete festival selections and awards trace this continuing journey.

About IUS of Time

IUS of Time (original title IUS del tiempo) follows Luca, a young photography student who arrives in a small Asturian village to develop an artistic project and reconnect with his roots. He stays with Xuan, an ageing cheesemaker whose life has been shaped by silence and prejudice. Their encounter becomes an intimate exploration of memory, desire and belonging, and of the connections that can grow between generations.

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, the film was shot entirely on location in Asturias, in northern Spain.

We warmly thank the festival jury and team for this recognition and congratulate the entire cast and crew of IUS of Time.

Discover more about IUS of Time

• Official film page
• Complete festival selections and awards
• The NEXT International Film Festival on FilmFreeway
• Festival announcements on Facebook

IUS of Time, co-directed by Roberto F. Canuto and Xu Xiaoxi, was part of the official programme of the 4th Bolinas Film Festival, in Bolinas, California. Produced by Almost Red Productions with the support of the Principality of Asturias and the Asturias Paraíso Natural Film Commission, the film screened at the Bolinas Gallery, within the Gallery Arthouse Popup Screenings that ran throughout the festival week.

The selection brings the film back to the San Francisco Bay Area, where it won Best Cinematography at the Silicon Valley Queer Film Festival this year, and adds another American stop to a route that began with its international premiere in Miami.

IUS of Time at the 4th Bolinas Film Festival

🎬 Festival: 4th Bolinas Film Festival · Bolinas, California, United States
🏛 Organised by Bolinas Film Festival, Inc.
📅 Dates: 17–20 September 2026
🎞 Section: Official programme · Gallery Arthouse Popup Screenings, Bolinas Gallery
🇺🇸 The film’s return to California after the Silicon Valley Queer Film Festival
🎥 Film: IUS of Time (IUS del tiempo) · Spain · 2025 · 25 min · Drama, Rural, LGBTIQ+

Festival: bolinasfilmfestival.com

Four days of cinema on the West Marin coast

Bolinas is a coastal village in West Marin, about an hour north of San Francisco. Its festival, run by the non-profit Bolinas Film Festival, Inc., reached its fourth edition this year and used the village itself as the venue: the Calvary Starlight Theater, the Bolinas Gallery, the Coast Cafe and Smiley’s Saloon, with birdwatching walks, a redwood forest immersion and a farm tour between screenings. The organisers describe it as a celebration of cinema, community and place.

The 2026 programme opened on Thursday 17 September with a gala and a short film series, continued on Friday with American Pachuco, brought four short blocks and two feature spotlights on Saturday, and closed on Sunday with Reggae Girlz and a free programme of films by local filmmakers.

IUS of Time: cheese caves, amestao and two men who were not looking for each other

IUS of Time was shot entirely in rural Asturias, in northern Spain: in the Picos de Europa, in the cheese caves of Cabrales and across the municipalities of Piloña, Cabrales and Onís, in villages such as Biedes and Asiegu. It is spoken in Spanish and in amestao, the mix of Spanish and Asturian still heard every day in those villages, and it was made with a small crew working inside the real places and the real trade it portrays.

Xuan spends his life in the caves where Cabrales cheese matures, an underground, slow and physical craft that the film follows without explaining it. Luca films that work, and in filming it he begins to see the man doing it. What happens between them is told mostly through silences, gestures and the work of two pairs of hands.

The film also keeps a specific idea at its centre: the lives a small rural community allows and the lives it quietly puts away. Xuan has spent decades hiding his homosexuality under the weight of a village where everyone knows everyone. Luca arrives from a generation for which that concealment is no longer obvious, and the distance between the two is the real subject of the film.

IUS of Time, more than a year on the road: 73 selections on five continents

Since its 2025 premiere, IUS of Time has gathered more than 70 official selections across five continents, screenings in 30 countries and 9 awards and distinctions, which makes it one of the most internationally circulated Asturian fiction short films of recent years.

Its international premiere was at the 27th OUTshine International Film Festival in Miami, and it later received the Director’s Choice Award at the 45th Thomas Edison Film Festival, an Oscar-qualifying festival in the United States, which brought the film into the festival’s 2026 touring programme across American cultural venues. Its two most recent awards arrived this year: Best LGBTQIA+ Film at the 3rd Power24 International Film Festival in Durban, South Africa, and the Audience Award for Best Narrative Short at the 5th Pillusion Film Festival in Tyrol, Austria. It has also been selected at the 53rd Huesca International Film Festival (Oscar and Goya qualifying), the 31st Chéries-Chéris of Paris, the 43rd Reeling of Chicago, the 16th KASHISH Pride Film Festival of Mumbai, the 24th Beijing Queer Film Festival, the 27th ReelOut of Canada and the 63rd FICX of Gijón/Xixón. The full list of festival selections and awards is available on the film’s page.

Technical details

• Original title: IUS del tiempo · International title: IUS of Time
• Spain · 2025 · 25 min 48 s · colour
• Languages: Spanish and Asturian (amestao)
• Subtitles available: English, French, Italian, Portuguese (European and Brazilian), Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Spanish
• Genre: drama · rural · LGBTIQ+
• Directed, written and edited by Roberto F. Canuto and Xu Xiaoxi · Screenplay with Enrique Pérez Romero
• Cinematography: Fran Córdoba
• Cast: Manuel Pizarro, Pelayo Carrizo, Andy Almar, Laura Ubach, Martina Bueno, Pablo Valdés
• Production: Almost Red Productions, with the support of the Principality of Asturias and the Asturias Paraíso Natural Film Commission
• Poster design: Ola Podgorska
• Programming and press enquiries: info@almostred.com

More information

Official page of IUS of Time
Complete list of festival selections and awards
Short Focus Film Festival
Roberto F. Canuto and Xu Xiaoxi
Watch the official trailer

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

IUS of Time, co-directed by Roberto F. Canuto and Xu Xiaoxi, has been selected for the official programme of the 9th Short Focus Film Festival in London, organised by FRAME LIGHT. Produced by Almost Red Productions with the support of the Principality of Asturias and the Asturias Paraíso Natural Film Commission, the film is the only Spanish title among the nineteen shorts selected this year, and it closes Programme Three.

It is the film’s third appearance in the United Kingdom since its 2025 premiere, and it arrives in London with more than 70 official selections behind it.

IUS of Time at the 9th Short Focus Film Festival

🎬 Festival: 9th Short Focus Film Festival · London, United Kingdom
🏛 Organised by FRAME LIGHT · Festival directors Aya Ishizuka and Dean Archibald-Smith
📅 Dates: 19–27 September 2026
🎞 Section: Programme Three · closing film
🇪🇸 The only Spanish film in the official programme
🎥 Film: IUS of Time (IUS del tiempo) · Spain · 2025 · 25 min · Drama, Rural, LGBTIQ+

Festival: framelight.org

Short Focus Film Festival: nine editions of short film in London

Short Focus is the festival of FRAME LIGHT, a London publisher devoted to short film and to independent filmmakers, which describes its purpose as discovering short films that deserve to reach a wider audience. The festival reaches its ninth edition in 2026 with nineteen titles across three programmes, chosen by a curatorial panel, with live screenings at the Close-Up Cinema in Shoreditch and a jury of seven members: Giulia Carbonaro, Diana Cordova, Vir Datta, Monica Di Fiore, Catarina Gonçalves, Corey Mandelzys and Maryam Raz.

IUS of Time shares Programme Three with Body (Pakistan), A Mother’s Love (Austria), Easy Sell (United Kingdom) and Game Over (United Kingdom). At 25 minutes and 48 seconds, it is the longest film in this year’s festival.

What the programme says about the film

In its brochure, the festival introduces IUS of Time as a story in which a stormy past and an uncertain future intertwine in an Asturian village, and describes the encounter between Luca, a young photographer looking for inspiration and for his roots, and Xuan, a reclusive cheesemaker and former teacher whose initial distrust gives way to an unexpected connection.

“We shot IUS of Time in villages where everyone knows who you are, and it tells the story of a man who spent his life making sure they did not know everything. Seeing it travel to London, next to films from Pakistan, Austria and the United Kingdom, tells us that something in that story is not only Asturian.”

Roberto F. Canuto and Xu Xiaoxi

Cheese caves, amestao and two men who were not looking for each other

IUS of Time was shot entirely in rural Asturias, in northern Spain: in the Picos de Europa, in the cheese caves of Cabrales and across the municipalities of Piloña, Cabrales and Onís, in villages such as Biedes and Asiegu. It is spoken in Spanish and in amestao, the mix of Spanish and Asturian still heard every day in those villages, and it was made with a small crew working inside the real places and the real trade it portrays.

Xuan spends his life in the caves where Cabrales cheese matures, an underground, slow and physical craft that the film follows without explaining it. Luca films that work, and in filming it he begins to see the man doing it. What happens between them is told mostly through silences, gestures and the work of two pairs of hands.

The film also keeps a specific idea at its centre: the lives a small rural community allows and the lives it quietly puts away. Xuan has spent decades hiding his homosexuality under the weight of a village where everyone knows everyone. Luca arrives from a generation for which that concealment is no longer obvious, and the distance between the two is the real subject of the film.

A year on the road: more than 70 selections on five continents

Since its 2025 premiere, IUS of Time has gathered more than 70 official selections across five continents, screenings in 30 countries and 9 awards and distinctions, which makes it one of the most internationally circulated Asturian fiction short films of recent years.

Its international premiere was at the 27th OUTshine International Film Festival in Miami, and it later received the Director’s Choice Award at the 45th Thomas Edison Film Festival, an Oscar-qualifying festival in the United States, which brought the film into the festival’s 2026 touring programme across American cultural venues. Its two most recent awards arrived this year: Best LGBTQIA+ Film at the 3rd Power24 International Film Festival in Durban, South Africa, and the Audience Award for Best Narrative Short at the 5th Pillusion Film Festival in Tyrol, Austria. It has also been selected at the 53rd Huesca International Film Festival (Oscar and Goya qualifying), the 31st Chéries-Chéris of Paris, the 43rd Reeling of Chicago, the 16th KASHISH Pride Film Festival of Mumbai, the 24th Beijing Queer Film Festival, the 27th ReelOut of Canada and the 63rd FICX of Gijón/Xixón. The full list of festival selections and awards is available on the film’s page.

Technical details

• Original title: IUS del tiempo · International title: IUS of Time
• Spain · 2025 · 25 min 48 s · colour
• Languages: Spanish and Asturian (amestao)
• Subtitles available: English, French, Italian, Portuguese (European and Brazilian), Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Spanish
• Genre: drama · rural · LGBTIQ+
• Directed, written and edited by Roberto F. Canuto and Xu Xiaoxi · Screenplay with Enrique Pérez Romero
• Cinematography: Fran Córdoba
• Cast: Manuel Pizarro, Pelayo Carrizo, Andy Almar, Laura Ubach, Martina Bueno, Pablo Valdés
• Production: Almost Red Productions, with the support of the Principality of Asturias and the Asturias Paraíso Natural Film Commission
• Poster design: Ola Podgorska
• Programming and press enquiries: info@almostred.com

More information

Official page of IUS of Time
Complete list of festival selections and awards
Short Focus Film Festival
Roberto F. Canuto and Xu Xiaoxi
Watch the official trailer

IUS of Time, the Asturian LGBTQ+ short film directed by Roberto F. Canuto and Xu Xiaoxi, has won the Audience Award for Best Narrative Short Film at the 5th Pillusion Film Festival in Pill, in the Tyrolean Alps (Austria). The prize, voted directly by the festival’s audience, was announced just two days after the film held its Austrian premiere there on 27 August 2026.

IUS of Time award details at Pillusion Film Festival

IUS of Time: an award from the audience, in a barn in the Alps

There is a quiet symmetry to this win. IUS of Time is a story about a disappearing rural world — an ageing cheesemaker, a small village, a way of life holding on. Pillusion is a festival built inside a barn turned into a cinema in Pill, a village twenty-five minutes from Innsbruck, created by filmmakers Leo and Marina Decristoforo to bring independent cinema to an area where many surrounding towns and villages have no cinema of their own. This year the festival’s theme was Parallels — and few films could sit more naturally under that word.

That the award came directly from the audience makes it especially meaningful: a deeply local, rural Asturian story, chosen by the people of an alpine village gathered around a screen. Alongside its programme, Pillusion keeps analogue craft alive with hands-on workshops in 16mm filmmaking and large-format film photography — a festival, in its own words, of films worth the trip. IUS of Time screened in Block 4 on the second evening, followed by a Q&A in which the directors took part remotely from Spain. (The festival and the screening were covered in full in our Pillusion selection announcement.)

IUS of Time: nine awards across five continents

The Pillusion prize is the film’s ninth international award and distinction. Earlier honours include Best LGBTQIA+ Film at the 3rd Power24 International Film Festival in Durban (South Africa), the Director’s Choice Award at the 45th Thomas Edison Film Festival (United States), the Audience Award at the 24th Avilés Acción Film Festival (Spain), third place in the LQCW × CathayPlay Audience Choice Award at the 24th Beijing Queer Film Festival (China), and awards for Best Cinematography at the 4th Silicon Valley Queer Film Festival (United States) and the Piedad Isla Award at the Rural and Mountain Film Festival of Cervera de Pisuerga (Spain), along with a Certificate of Merit for Cinematography at the 68th Rochester International Film Festival (United States) and an Honourable Mention at the 1st Goitacá International Film Festival (Brazil). The full list of awards and selections is available on the film’s festival page.

IUS of Time: 71 festivals across 29 countries

Since its 2025 premiere, IUS of Time has now travelled to 71 international film festivals across 29 countries and five continents, establishing itself as one of the most internationally circulated Asturian fiction short films of recent years. Its journey includes Oscar- and Goya-qualifying events such as the 53rd Huesca International Film Festival, and screenings at the 31st Chéries-Chéris of Paris, the 43rd Reeling of Chicago, the 27th OUTshine of Miami, the 16th KASHISH Pride Film Festival of Mumbai, the 24th Beijing Queer Film Festival and the 63rd FICX of Gijón/Xixón, among many others. This autumn the film also travels to two Goya-qualifying festivals in Spain — the 15th K-Lidoscopi in Cullera and Octubre Corto in Arnedo.

About IUS of Time

IUS of Time (original title IUS del tiempo) follows Luca, a young photography student who arrives in a small village in Asturias to develop an artistic project and reconnect with his roots. He stays at the home of Xuan, an ageing cheesemaker whose apparent brusqueness gradually reveals a past shaped by silence, prejudice and unspoken histories. Through his camera, Luca becomes fascinated by Xuan’s hands and craft, and the encounter unfolds into an intimate exploration of memory, desire and belonging — a tribute to those who lived their relationships in the shadows, and to the transformative power of intergenerational connection.

The film was shot entirely on location 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.

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 with dialogue in Spanish and Asturian.

Discover more about IUS of Time

IUS of Time, co-directed by Roberto F. Canuto and Xu Xiaoxi, has been selected for the Official Fiction Selection of the 15th K-Lidoscopi Short Film Festival, held in Cullera (Valencia, Spain). Produced by Almost Red Productions with the support of the Principality of Asturias and the Asturias Paraíso Natural Film Commission, the film now travels from the north of Spain to the Valencian coast to join one of the country’s Goya-qualifying festivals.

For the directors, it is also a homecoming. In 2018, at the festival’s 7th edition, Canuto and Xiaoxi won the Best Screenplay Award for their short Sunken Plum (Ciruela de agua dulce), which was also nominated for Best Fiction Short and Best Art Direction. Eight years later they return to the same stage in Cullera with a new film — a quiet full circle for two filmmakers whose work keeps travelling far from where it was shot.

IUS of Time at the 15th K-Lidoscopi

🎬 Festival: 15th K-Lidoscopi Short Film Festival · Cullera, Valencia, Spain
🏆 Section: Official Selection — Fiction (Argumental)
🥇 Goya-Qualifying Festival (national reference for short film since 2012)
📅 Screening: within the festival’s Official Selection · exact date to be announced
🎞 Film: IUS of Time (IUS del tiempo) · Spain · 2025 · 25 min · Drama, Rural, LGBTIQ+

Festival: festivalcurts.k-lidoscopi.com

K-Lidoscopi: a Goya-qualifying festival and a national reference for short film

Organised by the Asociación Cultural K-Lidoscopi in Cullera, on the Valencian coast, the festival has grown since 2012 into one of the most respected short film events in Spain, bringing together some of the strongest work on the national short film scene each year. As a Goya-qualifying festival, its official selection is judged by category-specific committees of audiovisual professionals, across fiction, documentary and animation.

IUS of Time competes in the fiction category, alongside works by established Spanish directors — a line-up that reflects the range and ambition of contemporary Spanish short filmmaking.

Rural roots and hidden lives: the story of IUS of Time

Shot entirely in rural Asturias, in northern Spain, IUS of Time follows Luca, a young photography student who arrives in an Asturian village to develop an artistic project and to explore his own roots. He stays with Xuan, an ageing cheesemaker who has spent a lifetime hiding his homosexuality under the weight of a small rural community. Through Luca’s camera and Xuan’s trade, two generations and two worlds meet in an intimate, unexpected encounter.

The film was shot in the Picos de Europa and the cheese caves of Cabrales, across municipalities such as Piloña, Cabrales and Onís, and in villages such as Biedes and Asiegu — a portrait of a disappearing rural world and of the lives quietly held within it.

From Asturias to Valencia: an international journey reaching the Spanish qualifying circuit

The K-Lidoscopi selection brings IUS of Time into the official selection of one of Spain’s Goya-qualifying festivals, adding to its presence at other qualifying events such as the 53rd Huesca International Film Festival (Oscar & Goya Qualifying) and the 34th Madrid Film Festival PNR (Goya Qualifying). This autumn the film also screens at the 28th Octubre Corto – Arnedo Film Festival.

IUS of Time has also taken part in different sections of leading Asturian festivals such as the 63rd FICX in Gijón/Xixón and the 24th Avilés Acción Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award — a strong presence on the regional and national circuit alongside its international run.

Since its 2025 premiere, IUS of Time has gathered selections across five continents and 29 countries, at festivals including 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 received seven awards and distinctions along the way. The full list of festival selections and awards is available on the film’s page.

More information

Official page of IUS of Time
Complete list of festival selections and awards
K-Lidoscopi Short Film Festival
Watch the official trailer

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

IUS of Time has been selected for DiversimaCine, the social cinema competition of the 11th DiversidArte – Festival of Inclusive Arts, screening June 18 in A Coruña, Spain. The film is part of the open-air “Audience Vote” session of the 9th DiversimaCine Fiction Competition, held at the Campo da Leña, where the public votes for the Audience Award for Best Short Film.

Directed by Roberto F. Canuto and Xu Xiaoxi and produced by Almost Red Productions with the support of the Department of Culture, Linguistic Policy and Sport of the Principality of Asturias and the Asturias Paraíso Natural Film Commission, the film joins an exclusive selection of only seven social fiction shorts from around the world.

This is a return to DiversidArte for Almost Red Productions — we previously took part in the festival with our short film Sunken Plum (Chen Li). Coming back, this time with IUS of Time, to a festival built around inclusion and diversity feels especially meaningful.

IUS of Time Screening details

What Is DiversidArte — and Why This Selection Matters

DiversidArte is a Festival of Inclusive Arts held each June in A Coruña, Galicia, and organised by the non-profit association Poten100mos. It defines itself as a cultural celebration of diversity and inclusion, designed to raise awareness around respect, equality and the visibility of communities that are too often left at the margins. Across its programme, the festival brings together music, performance, street culture and cinema, with a strong commitment to accessibility — including sign language interpretation, subtitling, reduced-mobility support and vibrating backpacks for deaf and hard-of-hearing audiences.

Within that framework, DiversimaCine is the festival’s social cinema competition, now in its 9th edition. Its Fiction section gathers a selection of social fiction shorts from around the world, screened outdoors at the Campo da Leña — a historic public square in A Coruña, between the Old Town and A Pescaría. The session is built around audience participation: the public watches the films under the stars and votes, turning the screening into a shared, communal act rather than a passive one.

For IUS of Time, a film about connection across difference and the quiet ways people come to understand one another, being part of a festival built entirely around inclusion and the social value of cinema is a natural and meaningful fit.

A Rural Story That Travels: The Making of IUS of Time

IUS of Time (IUS del tiempo) is a 25-minute Spanish fiction short film set in the rural heart of Asturias, in northern Spain, with dialogue in Spanish and Asturian (amestáu). It tells the story of an unlikely bond between Luca, a young photography student, and Xuan, an ageing cheesemaker who has spent a lifetime in silence — quietly carrying a homosexuality he was never able to live openly, under the weight of a rural environment that left little room for difference. Their encounter, hesitant at first, becomes a connection that changes them both.

It is a film about loneliness, hidden identity and the gap between generations: what an older man had to bury in silence, a younger one can finally recognise and name. That is precisely why it resonates in a social cinema context like DiversimaCine — a festival built around inclusion, diversity and the visibility of lives too often pushed to the margins.

The film was shot entirely on location in Piloña council and the Picos de Europa, drawing its visual identity from the real landscapes of Asturias: the cheese caves of Cabrales, where the region’s traditional blue cheese matures in the mountain rock, and the green fields of Onís or Piloña. Rather than treating these places as backdrop, the directors built the story around them — the work of the cheesemaker, the rhythm of rural life, and the silence of the mountains are part of the film’s emotional language. It stars Manuel Pizarro and Pelayo Carrizo, with Andy Almar and Laura Ubach, from a screenplay by Roberto F. Canuto, Xu Xiaoxi and Enrique Pérez Romero.

The Most Internationally Selected Asturian Short Film of Recent Years

With more than 65 official selections and 7 awards across four continents, IUS of Time stands as one of the most internationally circulated and successful Asturian fiction short films of recent years. Its journey has taken it from festivals in Spain, the United States and China to India, Australia, Finland, Greece, Bulgaria and Brazil — a reach rarely achieved by a short film rooted so specifically in a single rural region.

What makes that trajectory unusual is not only the number of selections, but their geographic and cultural spread. A story told partly in Asturian, set among cheese caves and mountain villages, has found audiences in contexts that could hardly be more different from rural Asturias — from queer film festivals in Mumbai and Goiânia to inclusive arts festivals on the Atlantic coast of Galicia. That trajectory suggests something the team has come to believe deeply: the more local and honest a story is, the further it tends to travel.

Part of a Wider Body of Work

IUS of Time is the central film in a small creative universe developed by Almost Red Productions in Asturias, alongside two companion shorts conceived during its development: Blow Down (Sketches of IUS I) and Sunset in Paris (Sketches of IUS II). What began as preparatory exercises around the same themes — memory, emotional landscape and human connection — eventually grew into films with lives of their own. In 2026, Sunset in Paris was selected by the ICAA for Aula Corto, the official educational platform of Spain’s Ministry of Culture, entering the country’s official educational circuit.

It is not the first time Almost Red’s work reaches Galicia and A Coruña. The company previously took part in DiversidArte with Sunken Plum (Chen Li), an earlier short film, which makes this new selection feel less like a first visit and more like a continuation of a longer relationship with the festival and its city. Returning now with IUS of Time closes a kind of circle, bringing the company’s work back to a festival and a community that welcomed it before.

Follow the Journey of IUS of Time

From the mountains of Asturias to an open-air square in A Coruña, IUS of Time keeps finding new audiences and new ways for its story to be seen. Explore more about the film, its festival route and its companion works:

IUS of Time has been selected for the 12th edition of DIGO – Goiás International Sexual and Gender Diversity Film Festival, screening June 21 in Goiânia, Brazil, in competition for Best Film in the International Short Film category.

Directed by Roberto F. Canuto and Xu Xiaoxi and produced by Almost Red Productions with the support of the Department of Culture, Linguistic Policy and Sport of the Principality of Asturias and the Asturias Paraíso Natural Film Commission, the film is one of only ten films selected for DIGO’s competitive International Short Film section from hundreds of submissions received from around the world.

This is the third Brazilian selection for IUS of Time, though not the first time Almost Red Productions takes part in DIGO — the company has screened earlier work at the festival before.

Screening details

What Is DIGO — and Why This Selection Matters

DIGO – Goiás International Sexual and Gender Diversity Film Festival is the leading LGBTI+ film festival in Brazil’s Centre-West region, and one of the most significant platforms for queer cinema in Latin America. Founded in 2016, it has grown into an essential space for resistance, visibility and dialogue — combining film screenings with panels, workshops and cultural activities that extend the conversation beyond the screen.

In its 12th edition, DIGO received hundreds of submissions from around the world. From that pool, only ten films were selected for the competitive international programme — and IUS of Time is one of them. The international selection this year includes strong representation from Spain, Argentina, Chile and Peru, reflecting the festival’s commitment to Latin American and Iberian queer cinema.

DIGO operates as an independent festival without the support of local incentive laws — a fact its director, Cristiano Sousa, names openly. That independence makes its continued existence a political act as much as a cultural one. Being selected here is not only a recognition of the film; it is an invitation to be part of something that keeps going precisely because it has to.

IUS of Time in Brazil

This selection marks the third time IUS of Time has been chosen by a Brazilian festival. The film previously screened at the 14th Rio LGBTQIA+ International Film Festival in Rio de Janeiro, and received an Honorable Mention at the 1st Goitacá International Film Festival in Campos dos Goytacazes. Each selection has brought the film to a different Brazilian audience and region — and DIGO, as the leading LGBTI+ festival in the country’s Centre-West, adds a new and distinct geography to that presence, now spanning Rio de Janeiro, Campos dos Goytacazes and Goiânia.

Almost Red Productions’ prior relationship with DIGO makes this selection feel less like a first encounter and more like a return — this time with a film that has already travelled through more than 60 international festivals across Europe, the Americas, Asia and Oceania.

IUS of Time: An Ongoing Journey

Through its focus on memory, landscape and intergenerational connection, IUS of Time has become part of a wider conversation around contemporary rural queer cinema — stories that move queer experience out of the city and into the mountains, the fields, and the small communities where it has always also existed.

From its first presentation in Asturias at the XI Festival CortoGijón to its international premiere at the 27th OUTshine LGBTQ Film Festival and its Northern European premiere at Manse Pride by the 56th Tampere Film Festival, through to recent selections at the 10th FeCHA Athens, the 11th Geelong Pride Film Festival in Australia, its fourth Indian festival at Out & Loud Pune and its Bulgarian premiere at the 15th Sofia Pride Film Fest, the film’s complete trajectory is documented in our festival selections and awards list.

About the Film

IUS of Time (IUS del tiempo) is a 25-minute Spanish fiction short film, with dialogue in Spanish and Asturian (amestáu), set in the rural landscapes of Asturias, in northern Spain. Directed by Roberto F. Canuto and Xu Xiaoxi, it tells the story of an unlikely encounter between a young photographer and an ageing cheesemaker — two solitary lives that cross in an intimate, improbable collision of worlds. Through themes of memory, masculinity, emotional inheritance and intergenerational connection, the film explores queer experience in a rural setting rarely portrayed on screen.

The film was shot on location in the Picos de Europa, including the cheese caves of Cabrales, the fields of Onís and other natural settings across Asturias. It stars Manuel Pizarro and Pelayo Carrizo, with Andy Almar and Laura Ubach, and was written by Roberto F. Canuto, Xu Xiaoxi and Enrique Pérez Romero. With more than 60 international selections and 7 awards across four continents, IUS of Time is one of the most internationally circulated Asturian fiction short films of recent years.

Its international reception suggests that stories rooted in highly specific places can still resonate across very different cultural contexts.

Part of the Almost Red Universe

IUS of Time is the central work in a small creative universe developed by Almost Red Productions in Asturias. During its development, the directors created two companion short films conceived as preparatory sketches: Blow Down (Sketches of IUS I) and Sunset in Paris (Sketches of IUS II). What began as exercises around the same themes — memory, emotional landscape and human connection — grew into films with lives of their own.

In 2026, Sunset in Paris was selected by the ICAA for Aula Corto, the official educational short film platform of Spain’s Ministry of Culture, becoming the first film of the Almost Red universe to enter the country’s official educational circuit. Together, these films reflect an ongoing interest in telling intimate, rooted stories from rural Asturias — and in letting them travel as far as they can, from classrooms in Spain to festival screens across Europe, the Americas, Asia and Oceania.

Discover More About IUS of Time

With its selection at DIGO, IUS of Time continues a festival journey that has connected audiences across four continents while bringing stories rooted in rural Asturias into international conversations about memory, identity and queer experience.

Sunset in Paris (Atardecer en París) — the 10-minute LGBTQ+ short film directed by Roberto F. Canuto and Xu Xiaoxi and produced by Almost Red Productions — has been selected by the ICAA (Instituto de la Cinematografía y de las Artes Audiovisuales) for Aula Corto, Spain’s official educational short film platform.

Through Aula Corto, Sunset in Paris becomes available not only to schools throughout Spain, but also to Spanish educational centres abroad through the “Acción Educativa de España en el Exterior” programme. The selection significantly expands the film’s audience beyond traditional festival circuits, allowing it to reach students, teachers and educational communities in different countries and cultural contexts.

For us, it opens a chapter we hadn’t imagined when we made this film. Until now, Sunset in Paris had lived almost exclusively in the festival world. Now it’s going into classrooms.

What Is Aula Corto — and Why This Selection Matters

Aula Corto is the educational platform created by Spain’s Ministry of Culture, through the ICAA, in collaboration with Siena Educación. Its premise is simple: the short film as the only protagonist in the classroom. The platform currently offers a catalogue of 66 short films from recent years — across fiction, animation and documentary — available for free to registered teachers at primary, secondary, bachillerato and vocational training levels across Spain and at Spanish schools abroad.

Each film comes with a dedicated teaching guide (guía didáctica) with specific activities designed to help teachers get the most out of the screening — whether for values education, audiovisual literacy, or simply as a starting point for conversation. Teachers register for free using their school email address, and each school can have as many registered users as it has teachers.

It is, in other words, a serious institutional infrastructure for bringing Spanish cinema into education. Being part of that catalogue — alongside films awarded at the Goya Awards and screened at major Spanish festivals — is not a minor thing.

Sunset in Paris (Atardecer en París) was selected directly by the ICAA for the film’s cinematic quality and the educational value of its content. On the platform it is recommended for 4º de ESO, Bachillerato and Vocational Training (FP) levels, and catalogued under three UN Sustainable Development Goals — SDG 3 (Health and Wellbeing), SDG 4 (Quality Education) and SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities) — with competencies in citizenship and personal and social development.

When we read that classification, something clicked. SDG 3 because the film is about emotional health — about what happens inside two young people when they finally allow themselves to feel something they’ve been carrying without a name. SDG 10 because the inequality it addresses isn’t economic: it’s the quieter, more intimate inequality of growing up in a world that hasn’t yet made room for who you are. And SDG 4 — quality education — because that’s exactly what cinema can do when it’s used well: teach empathy, teach ambiguity, teach the courage to sit with a question rather than rush to an answer.

The story Sunset in Paris (Atardecer en París) tells is precisely the kind that often goes untold in a classroom. Which is, perhaps, exactly why it belongs there.

A Short Film Born as a Sketch

Sunset in Paris carries a subtitle that gives away its origins: Sketches of IUS II. It was not conceived as a standalone work. It was conceived as a tool.

During the extended development process of IUS of Time — the 25-minute LGBTQ+ drama that has since gathered more than 60 international festival selections and 7 awards — Roberto F. Canuto and Xu Xiaoxi identified the need to explore the emotional world of Luca, the film’s young protagonist, before the main shoot began. The result was two short films made as preparatory exercises: Blow Down (Sketches of IUS I) and Sunset in Paris (Sketches of IUS II). Both were completed and edited by the end of 2024, alongside IUS of Time itself.

What none of them anticipated was that these sketches would develop a life of their own.

Sunset in Paris premiered at the 62nd FICX – Gijón International Film Festival in November 2024, in the Asturies Curtiumetraxes section — the festival’s dedicated showcase for Asturian short cinema. That premiere placed a film made as a preparatory exercise in front of one of Spain’s most historically significant film festivals.

The Story: A Mountain, a Game, and Something That Needed to Surface

During a quiet afternoon on a mountain in Asturias, two young friends — Luca and Ana — play a game of “Truth or Dare.” The rules are simple. The conversation is not. Slowly, through challenges and confessions, what begins as play becomes something harder to name: a recurring dream that resurfaces, an attraction that refuses to stay buried, a desire that neither character has yet been able to speak aloud. Paris appears in the background — as a possibility, as a threshold, as the place where a different life might begin.

The film doesn’t resolve what it opens. We didn’t want it to.

“The game is part of life, and often, life reveals itself through play. The two teenagers at the heart of this story stand on the threshold of discovery — when everything feels possible, when words flow freely, when play is still, almost exclusively, the essence of existence.” — Roberto F. Canuto & Xu Xiaoxi

Where It Was Made: Monte Cayón and an 18th-Century Attic

The film was shot in a single intensive day in the municipality of Piloña, Asturias. Exterior scenes were filmed on Monte Cayón — a mountain known for its sweeping, hard-to-reach views over the Asturian landscape — where shooting began in the afternoon to capture the warm light of the setting sun. Once darkness fell, the crew moved indoors to the attic of an 18th-century house in Biedes, where the night added a quality of quiet tension to the more intimate sequences.

The small production team deliberately prioritised spontaneity. Improvisation was encouraged in several of the dialogues. The camera began with close-ups — capturing proximity, small gestures, the unspoken — and gradually opened to wider shots as the emotional landscape between the two characters shifted. The Asturian landscape in Sunset in Paris is not backdrop. It is, as in all Almost Red films, an active presence: the mountain as mirror, the attic as confession booth, the darkness as permission.

The Cast: Two ESAD Graduates, One Shared Universe

Pelayo Carrizo plays Luca — the same character he would go on to play in IUS of Time. Born and raised in Asturias, Pelayo graduated from the Superior School of Dramatic Arts of the Principality of Asturias (ESAD) and has been a regular collaborator with Almost Red Productions since his film debut in 2021. His theatre credits include work with Factoría Norte and Susana Gudín Producciones, and tribute productions for the Fundación Princesa de Asturias. The continuity of his presence across the IUS universe — from sketch to feature short — gives the character a coherence that was not scripted so much as lived.

Paula Lasheras plays Ana. Originally from the province of Burgos, she completed her studies at ESAD Asturias in 2024 — the same year this film was made. A multidisciplinary artist — actor, dancer, figure skater, singer. What Paula brings to Ana is hard to name precisely — which is fitting, because Ana is a character who resists being pinned down. She listens with her whole body. Her vulnerabilities surface without announcement. It was exactly what the scene needed.

Festival Journey: From FICX to an International Queer Circuit

The film’s initial distribution was handled by Nueru Distribución, an Asturian short film distributor, during its first year on the festival circuit. It is currently distributed by Almost Red Distribution. Since its premiere at the 62nd FICX in 2024, Sunset in Paris has built a steady festival presence:

• 62nd FICX – Gijón International Film Festival (Spain, 2024) — Asturies Curtiumetraxes Section
• XI Cortogijón Short Film Festival (Spain, 2025) — La Muestrona Section · 🏆 Audience Award for Best Short Film
• III Certamen Cinematográfico Amigos de Ribadesella (Spain, 2025) — 🏅 Finalist, Atalaya Award for Best Short Film
• IV Oriéntate – Asturian Film Festival of Llanes (Spain, 2025) — Oriéntate Official Section
• IX CINESAN Short Film Festival (Spain, 2025) — Asturias Section
• 47th Semana de Cine de Lugo (Spain, 2025) — Official Section
• 12th International Queer Film Festival Playa del Carmen (Mexico, 2025) — Official Section

Its selection at Playa del Carmen brought the film its first international screening and its first LGBTQ+ film festival outside Spain. The Aula Corto selection now adds a different kind of reach: not a festival audience of cinephiles, but classrooms across the country.

A Film Within a Universe

Sunset in Paris does not stand alone. It is part of a creative ecosystem that Almost Red Productions has been building across three interconnected short films.

Blow Down (Sketches of IUS I) was the first preparatory exercise — exploring a different dimension of the same emotional territory. Sunset in Paris came second. And IUS of Time is the work they made possible: a 25-minute rural Asturian drama about memory, silence and intergenerational desire that has become one of the most internationally circulated Asturian fiction short films in recent years, with more than 60 international festival selections across Europe, the Americas, Asia and Oceania, and 7 awards — including the Director’s Choice Award at the 45th Thomas Edison Film Festival (USA), Best Cinematography at the 4th Silicon Valley Queer Film Festival (USA), and the Audience Award at the 24th Avilés Acción Film Festival (Spain).

That the sketch has now found its way into Spain’s classrooms, while the film it prepared for continues to travel the world, feels like the natural order of things.

About Almost Red Productions

Almost Red Productions is the company Roberto F. Canuto and Xu Xiaoxi founded to make the films they needed to make. Roberto is from Gijón; Xu is from Chengdu. They met through cinema and have been making films together since 2008 — in Los Angeles, in China, and now in Asturias. Their previous short film Sunken Plum travelled to more than 50 international festivals, including Raindance (London), Seminci (Valladolid), FICX (Gijón), the Málaga Film Festival and Outfest (Los Angeles), and won the Silver Caravel at the Cartagena Film Festival. Sunset in Paris is part of the same universe as IUS of Time — a film that has since become one of the most internationally circulated Asturian fiction short films in recent years.

Official page: Sunset in Paris →

IUS of Time — the film this was a sketch for →

Blow Down — Sketches of IUS I →

About the directors →

Aula Corto educational page →

IUS of Time will make its Bulgarian premiere at the 15th Sofia Pride Film Fest, Bulgaria’s only LGBTIQ+ film festival, screening in Sofia from June 2nd to 12th, 2026. Our Spanish LGBTQ+ short film — directed by Roberto F. Canuto and Xu Xiaoxi and produced with the support of the Department of Culture, Linguistic Policy and Sport of the Principality of Asturias and the Asturias Paraíso Natural Film Commission — screens on June 6th at Dom na Kinoto (Cinema House), in competition for the Audience Award for Best Short Film.

Some selections are about where your film travels. Others are about what a festival stands for. Sofia Pride Film Fest is firmly the second kind, and being part of its 15th edition means a great deal to us.

IUS of Time at the 15th Sofia Pride Film Fest — Screening Details

🗓 June 6, 2026 — 20:00h
📍 Dom na Kinoto (Cinema House), Sofia, Bulgaria
🏆 In competition: Audience Award for Best Short Film
🎟️ Tickets: domnakinoto.com
📱 Festival: @sofiapridefilmfest · sofiapridefilmfest.org

Our film screens in a short film block alongside Blow (Brazil), If Only You Knew (USA), Stimulants & Empathogens (Poland) and Found at Sea (Bulgaria/Belgium). The festival runs across two venues — Dom na Kinoto and the French Institute in Bulgaria — and for the fourth year running, the audience itself votes for the winning films.

A 25-Minute Asturian Short Film with 60+ Selections and 7 Awards

IUS of Time is a 25-minute Spanish-language fiction short film, set in Asturias and featuring touches of Asturian (amestáu), directed by Roberto F. Canuto and Xu Xiaoxi, written by Roberto F. Canuto, Xu Xiaoxi and Enrique Pérez Romero, and produced by Almost Red Productions with the support of the Principality of Asturias. The film stars Manuel Pizarro, Pelayo Carrizo, Andy Almar and Laura Ubach. Since its 2025 premiere, it has gathered more than 60 international festival selections across Europe, the Americas, Asia and Oceania, along with 7 awards, making it one of the most internationally circulated Asturian fiction short films in recent years.

The film’s 7 awards and distinctions to date are:

• Director’s Choice Award — 45th Thomas Edison Film Festival (USA)
• Audience Award Asturias — 24th Avilés Acción Film Festival (Spain)
• Best Cinematography — 4th Silicon Valley Queer Film Festival (USA)
• Best Cinematography — 3rd Rural and Mountain Film Festival of Cervera de Pisuerga (Spain)
• 3rd Audience Award — 20th Beijing Queer Film Festival (China)
• Honorable Mention — 13th Goitacá International Film Festival (Brazil)
• Certificate of Merit — 68th Rochester International Film Festival (USA)

From its first presentation in Asturias (XI Festival Cortogijon) to its international premiere at the 27th OUTshine LGBTQ Film Festival and its Northern European premiere at Manse Pride by the 56th Tampere Film Festival, through to recent selections at the 10th FeCHA Athens, the 11th Geelong Pride Film Festival in Australia and its fourth Indian festival at Out & Loud Pune, the film’s complete trajectory is documented in our festival selections and awards list.

Through its focus on memory, landscape and intergenerational connection, IUS of Time has become part of a wider conversation around contemporary rural queer cinema — stories that move queer experience out of the city and into the mountains, the fields, and the small communities where it has always also existed.

Why Sofia Matters to Us

Sofia Pride Film Fest is the only LGBTIQ+ film festival in Bulgaria. For fifteen editions, it has presented international queer cinema in a country where doing so is neither easy nor safe — since 2019, screenings have faced verbal and at times physical attacks. The festival continues regardless. That persistence is, in itself, a kind of cinema we admire deeply.

This is why the Bulgarian premiere of IUS of Time feels different from other selections. Our film is about silence — about a man who has spent a lifetime keeping a part of himself unspoken, in a rural world where prejudice made silence the safer choice. To screen that story in a place where queer visibility is still actively contested gives it a resonance we couldn’t have planned for. The selection also brings the film into Eastern Europe’s growing network of LGBTQ+ cultural festivals — a context where queer cinema carries a weight, and a risk, that it doesn’t always carry elsewhere.

The festival is organized by LGBTI organization Deystvie, Bulgaria’s largest LGBTIQ+ rights organization and a key defender of the community’s rights in the country. This 15th edition, themed “The Hero Is You!”, brings together 8 feature films and 11 short films — including titles awarded at Cannes and Venice in 2025. We’re honored that IUS of Time is part of that program.

The selection also expands the film’s presence within Eastern Europe’s growing network of LGBTQ+ film festivals and cultural initiatives. With its Bulgarian premiere, IUS of Time continues to expand its presence across European LGBTQ+ film festivals while bringing stories rooted in rural Asturias to new international audiences.

About IUS of Time

IUS of Time follows Luca, a young photography student who arrives in a small mountain village in rural Asturias and rents a room from Xuan — an older cheesemaker, solitary, carrying a past he has never spoken aloud. Through Luca’s camera and their slowly growing connection, the two men begin to rediscover memory, desire and belonging. The film was shot on location in rural Asturias, including the facilities and natural cheese-ageing caves of Quesería Ecológica Asiegu in the Cabrales municipality, along with the Piloña municipality, the valleys of Onís and the Picos de Europa. The landscape is not a backdrop. It carries the story.

The project emerged through an extended creative process that also produced the companion short films Blow Down and Sunset in Paris, conceived as “Sketches of IUS” during the screenplay development stage. It also features collaborations with artists such as Elmer Guevara, who created the analogue photographs attributed to Luca’s character in the film.

“Screening in Sofia means something we find hard to say lightly. A film about loving in silence, across generations and against the weight of prejudice, belongs especially in the places where that silence is still being enforced. We’re grateful to Deystvie and to everyone who keeps this festival alive.” — Roberto F. Canuto & Xu Xiaoxi

More About IUS of Time