Pau Balagué • Carlos Perez-Reche • Gemma Farraté • Alejandro Javaloyas • Bruno Sarabia • Javier Sanz • Alba Giralt Puzzled Love Drama • 2010 • 1h 30m

Opening scene: the timer says 19 minutes remaining, two young people are saying goodbye, they are in the airport, in the grip of despair...

Sun and Lucas are two Erasmus students in Barcelona who end up living in the same apartment by mistake. The landlords, unbeknownst to each other, rent the same room to both. Sun wins the room by drawing lots, and Lucas is relegated to the storage room. From an initially difficult coexistence, they end up falling madly in love with each other. But in a year, both will have to leave Spain; she will return to Chicago, and he to Australia. Their love has an expiration date dictated by time and space.

From August to August, 13 months and an incredible love story are precisely timed from the first to the last minute until the opening scene is repeated at the end with some variations...

Nine months before their goodbye, they have their first intimate, overwhelming, and passionate encounter, followed by the arrival of her boyfriend and the resulting betrayal; games, jokes, moments of despair over the terror of time passing, a carnival-like wedding ceremony that breaks the rule against housemates falling in love, a trip to the sea, the fear of parting, and attempts to cheat time. Love in the kitchen, in the shower, at the cinema.

The final scene and the clock that cannot be stopped...

An extraordinary result of the project by the final-year students of the Escac School in Barcelona: 13 directors film a 13-month love story, one segment each.

A lucky number, thirteen talents achieve a surprising and masterful cinematic operation, with a budget of just 12,000 euros, shot in 27 days. To the rhythm of Rita Pavone's "Il Ballo del Mattone," suggested by the aunt of one of the directors, a soundtrack with a classic romantic and passionate hit.

Various tones from ironic to erotic to romantic give the story an extraordinary unifying power.

A screenplay that saw democratic writing by many hands, a long process of dialogue and construction, tells a time-bound youthful love. Is it the expiration date that makes this passion so overwhelming?