A HollyShorts Casestudy
Narrative | Dramatic Features
Film Name: B For Boys
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Music
Date: July 22, 2026
Director: Gerard Vidal Barrena
Producer: Sophiyaa Nayar, Gerard Vidal Barrena
Writer: Gerard Vidal Barrena
Cinematographer: Rong Hu
Budget: $4k
Financing: Self-financed
Shooting Format: Digital
Screening Format: DCP
World Premiere: August 18, 2026 -HollyShorts Film Festival
Awards: N/A
Website: text
The official trailer for B For Boys
Watch the Official Trailer for B For Boys by Gerard Vidal Barrena
The Gerard Vidal Barrena Interview
indieactivity: What is your film about?
Gerard Vidal Barrena (GVB): The purest and most chaotic relationships I’ve ever known were with my teenage rock band, and the rehearsal room was where we found ecstasy, fell in love, fell out of it, and made up. Again and again. It is a condensed and claustrophobic environment filled with joy, creativity, anger, and jealousy. With B For Boys I wanted to create a fake band with which to go back to those days. I wanted to make a film with live music and write songs for the performers to play.
B For Boys explores the sensitive and vulnerable side of friendship between boys and the bridging power of music. Sometimes music saves the friendship. Sometimes it can’t. But it always leaves a mark.
Tell us about the festival run, marketing and sales?
Gerard Vidal Barrena (GVB): The film is on a festival run for self-distribution. It had its world premiere at the 2026 HollyShorts Film Festival this last August. Maria Juan is a freelance from Barcelona working as a PR agent with years of experience in the theatre and film industries. She’s taken the project under her wing as a PR agent. The film has not yet been publicly released.
Give the full Official Synopsis for your film?
Gerard Vidal Barrena (GVB): In a basement-turned boy cave, a band rehearsal spirals into chaos as creative tensions and personal drama push four teenage musicians to the brink. Simon, the perfectionist frontman, clashes with Gerry, the sullen guitarist, over songwriting and punctuality. After their frustrations explode into a physical altercation, music is the only thing that can bring them back together.
Development & Financing?
Gerard Vidal Barrena (GVB): Gerard Vidal Barrena wrote the screenplay in its entirety, basing a lot of its elements on his own life. He also self-financed the film and produced it to reduce costst as it was made during the 1st year of the Grad FIlm Program at NYU. Gerard is studying at NYU thanks to the LaCaixa Foundation Scholarship, which has been a key organization in Gerard’s trajectory as a filmmaker.
Production?
Gerard Vidal Barrena (GVB): 3 full days of shoot, shot entirely in the day time. One single location. The location was secured through close friends, shooting entirely in the rehearsal room of the WP Theatre in New York for free. The room was dressed to make it look like a basement / rehearsal studio, and this lowered the budget considerably. Most of the crew was composed of students and the cast was a mix of actors and non-actors (real musicians).
The camera and light equipment was supplied by the school (NYU Tisch). There was no ADR. All the music was recorded live and nothing was dubbed or re-recorded. Everything you hear is live. The sound editing was the longest process within post production, having to edit and mix multiple microphones for the actors and for every instrument in the room, with a total of 12 simultaneous tracks or more.
The Release?
Gerard Vidal Barrena (GVB): The film has not yet been publicly released.
Advice from the Filmmaker?
Gerard Vidal Barrena (GVB): If there is live music, record it live, always. It will make the room shine and flourish with energy. Allow yourself to play once you have a locked script. Play and leave room for magic – you never know, something might surprise you.
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