‘Alcarrás’ Director Carla Simón On Harvesting Peaches, Learning From Each Film
variety.comEmilio Mayorga Carla Simón’s first feature “Summer 1993” was a knockout; a Generation Kplus and Best First Feature award winner at the 2017 Berlinale and Spain’s 2018 Oscars submission, winning three Spanish Academy Goya Awards.
The director has since become a reference within a new wave of Catalan women filmmakers that have broken out to considerable box office and festival success.Now, Simón competes in Berlin’s main competition with her sophomore effort “Alcarràs,” exploring her own roots through her adoptive mother’s family.Set in the so-called Catalan Far West, in a small village near Lleida, the film is shot entirely using non-professional actors. “Alcarràs” tells the story of a family who make their living harvesting peaches and are forced to abandon the lands they have been taking care of for sixty years under a perpetual verbal agreement with the landowner.
After the landowner’s death, his heirs no longer recognize the agreement and want to change the situation. “Alcarràs” is sold by MK2 and produced by Elástica Films, Avalon and Vilaüt Films.How is “Alcarràs” a follow-up of “Summer 1993,” and a step forward in your career?The continuity is in the tone, in looking for a special realism in the actors, in this case non-actors, with the aim to keep them all “alive.” However, “Alcarràs” needed much more structure, especially for the work on the point of view.
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