HOLDING THE UNSAID

Bringing together four short works by Adrià Guxens, this programme traces an intimate cartography of distance, memory and belonging across Asia and Europe. Based in Barcelona yet deeply attentive to Asian cultural contexts, Guxens approaches each territory not as an outsider looking in, but as a listener—tuning into fragile gestures, suspended atmospheres, and the quiet tensions of identity.

The three films set in China — I Don’t Think It Is Going to Rain (2019), A Distant Noise (2023), and A Hakka Song (2024) — form a trilogy on contemporary China’s generational gap, unfolding across pre- and post-pandemic years. Moving between observation and quiet narrative, the films linger in suspended moments—where environment, voice and song become carriers of history and change. 

Completing the programme is Kokuhaku (2024), a Spanish-Japanese queer short movie centered on Tadashi. In this work, confession serves both as a narrative device and a means of cultural negotiation. The film delicately explores vulnerability, intergenerational silences, and the complexities of queer identity across linguistic and cultural borders. 

Together, these four works reveal a filmmaker engaged in sustained dialogue with Asia through proximity and care. They pose questions about approaching another culture without appropriation and about how cinema can hold space for ambiguity.

The screening will be followed by a live Q&A with Adrià Guxens, offering audiences the opportunity to delve deeper into his process, long-term engagement with Asian contexts, and the ethics of cross-cultural storytelling in contemporary short cinema.

Purchase your full-festival pass (passe-partouts) and day passes here. Individual event tickets available here. Follow our social media channels for updates and more!

Admission: €7.50 

Discover the full AECFest programme.