The Family Memories That Became Films

Some families preserve their history in photographs. Others keep letters, old videotapes or stories told around the dinner table. For three young Ecuadorians living in Spain, those fragments of family life became the starting point for films about growing up between two countries.

Robin Escobar Bazurto was just three and a half when his family left Guayaquil for Spain. They settled in Lanzarote, in the Canary Islands, but over the years relatives spread across Spain, Switzerland and Ecuador. Old VHS recordings of family celebrations captured moments when everyone was still together.

Now 28 and living in Granada, Robin used those recordings to make Adiós mi bien, adiós mi amor. The film won a short-film competition at Madrid's Línea Imaginaria Ecuadorian film festival, which concluded on October 30. He hopes to expand the project into a longer documentary.

For John Guzmán, 25, the memories centre on his grandparents. He moved to Spain as a baby, then returned to Quito as a teenager and spent six years living with his grandparents while his parents remained in Madrid. His film, Carta para mis abuelos, explores those years of growing up apart from his parents and the repeated experience of saying goodbye. It won the festival's audience award.

Andrea Pilaluisa turned to another family keepsake: letters her mother sent from Spain while Andrea was growing up in Ecuador. Her film, Volemos alto, tells the story of a child and a mother separated by an ocean, maintaining their relationship through written words. It was selected as a finalist.

The three films were among 12 entries in the short-film competition at Línea Imaginaria, a Madrid festival that has showcased Ecuadorian cinema since 2018.

For these filmmakers, the material was already there—in boxes of videotapes, saved letters and memories of grandparents. What changed was the decision to share those private family histories with an audience.

Sources: Primicias — Ecuadorian filmmakers and migration memories, November 4, 2026 · RTVE — Línea Imaginaria Festival