presentation of La Verbena by Rubén Sánchez, in Los Angeles ( United States of America)

The director of Furias, Rubén Sánchez, finishes shooting his new project, the medium-length film La Verbena. The story features Alex, played by Gabriel D'Almeida, also starring in another 2019 film Matthias & Maxime, directed by Xavier Dolan, and Marc (Robin Reese). During a summer night in the city of Barcelona, Alex and his girlfriend Anna (Aida Quintana), organise a meeting with a group of friends at a party. Marc returns from London just at that moment and unexpectedly to meet Alex, who was a friend of his in England. However, as the story unfolds in seventeen minutes, it is discovered that Anna is pregnant, which produces a mixed reaction of jealousy and joy in the Briton. But what Alex's girlfriend doesn't know is that Marc and the father of her future baby are more than friends, and that during their stay in London they were secretly in a relationship. This unconfessed homosexuality of Gabriel D'Almeida's character gives the viewer a sense of uncertainty about the future of the character, who is about to become a father and start a family. Everything will change for the character when it is revealed to him that Marc is HIV positive, and that he may also have been contaminated, the story culminating like a bombshell with the explosive reaction of the protagonist and the total confusion of Anna, who leaves the apparent happiness she showed at the beginning in complete disarray, blowing up all conception of the life of the triad of characters. La Verbena is an involving story, which tests the relationship of the characters with each other, showing with great depth in a short space the hidden secrets of each of the characters in the cast. This party is not only a time for friends to get together, focused on having a good time and happy for the reunion and new friendships, but also the means through which the closeness becomes a space for revelations that can turn the destiny of each of them upside down: from Anna's pregnancy, to Marc's jealousy and the subsequent coming to light of the British man's HIV-positive status, to Alex's fear and lack of knowledge. But not only that: Rubén Sánchez seeks to capture and transmit through this brief encounter between acquaintances the idea of the stigma that weighs on people who suffer from HIV, a secret that usually generates a great deal of rejection among people, whatever their condition. It also touches on issues such as the protagonist's undisclosed status, homosexuality, and how words can forever change a person's life. ‘I think cinema can change the view on many things,’ the director tells the press.