Directed by: Diego Gardo & Víctor Candela
Country: Spain, Germany
Running time: 24’45”
Year: 2025
Genre: Fiction
Subgenre & tags: Drama, Youth, Social, City, Indy shorts, Independent cinema, Author cinema, Spanish, German, European, Teens, Latino, Latin, Hispanoamerican, Debut, Opera prima, debut work, directional debut

Synopsis

Ruby is a young man from a working-class neighborhood in Madrid, tired of the violence and distrust that define his group of friends’ daily lives.
Together with Nélson, Daniela, and Alexis, he spends the eve of Saint John’s Night, where every plan and every action turn into a competition among the boys to validate their status within the group.

As night falls, Ruby finds himself at odds with his friends over an alleged theft, with the flames of the Saint John’s bonfires as silent witnesses.

Director’s Statement

The realities of working-class neighborhoods are often simplified and distorted, portraying their people as a homogeneous mass with shared material conditions and attitudes, thus ignoring their diversity.

Because we experience this from within, like so many others, we know that this supposed mass is not real and that inequality—even within the same working-class neighborhoods—is a fact.
This inequality can go unnoticed in the eyes of an adolescent because it is elusive, hidden behind modesty and shame, as well as behind inherited codes and values—hierarchy, strength, respect, masculinity—that make understanding, empathy, and connection among peers more difficult.

Often, without knowing how, these dynamics seep into our actions and daily decisions, gradually imposing themselves and ultimately shaping our way of seeing life.

Our short film revolves around these ideas and memories, with no greater intention than to step outside the self-absorption of our own problems and circumstances and invite others to look around.