TIMELINE. Director's Statement
This is “TIMELINE”, the tenth and final short film in the HUMAN CONCEPTS series. Just like the very first episode, this one is entirely in black and white, which was an intentional choice to close the circle, to return to the beginning, and to mark the end of a journey. But unlike the others, this film is the most personal of them all. It is not just about a concept. It is about life itself. About the passage of time. About my own timeline.
This film was born from a feeling I couldn’t shake: that life is moving too fast. I’ve felt like I’ve been traveling through tunnels, moments, places, memories, etc. Barely able to process them before they change again. That feeling of constant motion is what shapes the rhythm and pace of “TIMELINE”. Trains become metaphors. White butterflies and children running become echoes of innocence lost to time. In a way, we are all passengers, carried forward, through light and darkness, trying to hold on to something real.
The setting of this film is Barcelona’s Barrio Gótico, which played a huge role in its creation. I wandered its narrow alleyways, taking photos of its shadows, its silence, its age. Then, for the first time in this series, I enhanced those images with AI, blending the raw texture of photography with the imaginative force of AI softwares. This process gave the film a metaphysical feel: every shot is not just a place, but a thought, a memory, a reflection. A fragment of my life.
At its core, “TIMELINE” is about the tension between light and darkness. It’s the same tension that has existed throughout this entire series. But here, it becomes deeply existential. The butterflies reappear in spaces like alleyways and cinemas, flying through ruins and moments like ghosts. And for me, growing up has meant realizing that life is not a movie—that the beauty and the pain are both real, and both necessary. That the struggle between darkness and light is, in fact, the meaning.
Visually, the film moves quickly. We pass through staircases, deserts, tunnels, nature, cinema halls, and places that represent stages of life, thoughts, and emotional landscapes. The journey is not linear. It loops, like memory. It jumps, like feeling. And it ends the only way it can: open, unresolved, still in motion.
Thank you to everyone who has watched HUMAN CONCEPTS, from the very first film to this final one. It has been a journey across ideas, across technologies, across life itself. One that I will never forget.
From Barcelona with love,
Andrés