An ensemble cast of children tackles the travails of grownup society around a New York dining table in this excerpt of comedic drama American Autumn. Echoing the grand mood of such 1970s New York-set classics as Annie Hall and Kramer Vs. Kramer, as well as the late period films of surrealist Luis Buñuel, the 20-minute short was shot over four days by 23-year-old Catalan émigré Albert Moya. Though ruminating on the foibles of metropolitan dinner parties, and the varying shades of Manhattan in the fall, the film is as much influenced by Moya’s growing up among a large family in Tarragona, Spain, where he would study the various conversations and hang-ups of his aunts and uncles at big gatherings. “Working with kids really makes me feel super awake,” he says. “There is something in their innocence and that magic moment of discovering something for the first time that really catches me.” The actors were aged between seven and 12, and the director remembers such antics as one cast member daubing their name on an expensive leather sofa during rehearsal, and the blossoming of a first romance between two of the young stars. “They really felt in love,” reminisces Moya. “It couldn’t have been cuter.”