IUS of Time Returns to Asturias for La Benefílmica, a Film Showcase in Piloña

Almost Red Productions — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 17:28:46 +0000

The short film by Roberto F. Canuto and Xu Xiaoxi screens on Saturday 5 September at the old spa of Borines, in the shorts session of La Benefílmica, a film showcase in the Asturian council of Piloña.

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

IUS of Time screens on Saturday 5 September in the Especial Curtiometraxes session of La Benefílmica, at the old spa of Borines.

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

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