emotional first two features Summer 1993 and Alcarràs Carla Simon recently shot the final part of her loose family trilogy with Romería Now prepping a festival premiere this year MK2 Films has unveiled the first still for the film shot by Hélène Louvart (La Chimera Here’s the synopsis: “Romería follows Marina travelling to Spain’s Atlantic coast to meet her paternal grandparents for the first time and obtain their signature for a scholarship application As she navigates this unfamiliar branch of her family she is confronted with a past shaped by absence and long-buried emotions What begins as a practical task soon becomes an emotional reckoning with a family history shaped by the painful void left by a generation lost to addiction and illness.” “Since I discovered that my biological mother was passionate about flamenco, a great curiosity began to grow in me for this genre, because of its history and its exceptional capacity to connect directly with emotion,” the director said of the project when it was first announced “This time music and dance will become the challenge I consider necessary to continue growing artistically and cinematographically with each project I find it very exciting and stimulating to recover this film genre and adapt it to the contemporary world has continued to transform and adapt to the current reality.” Jordan Raup is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Film Stage and a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic. Track his obsessive film-watching on Letterboxd. will compete for the Palm d’Or at this year’s edition of the Cannes Film Festival with her latest work Filmed in the Galician city of Vigo, ‘Romeria’ explores family relationships, drawing inspiration from Simon's own paternal family. Marina is 18 years old and was adopted as a child. She embarks on a journey to Vigo to meet her biological father’s family for the first time.   Guided by her mother’s diary and a bond with her cousin, Marina begins to unravel open family wounds and piece together the fragmented memory of her parents, whom she barely remembers.  According to Simón, the film explores memory and elusive family moments that may “never be fully understood.”  “I tried to piece together the memory of my parents through the recollections of my family and those who knew them, but I failed,” she said in a statement.   The film aims to recover the legacy of a forgotten generation that faced heroin addiction and the emergence of HIV and AIDS.   “It’s part of the historic memory of a Spain that deserves to be revisited,” she added.  With this new picture, the Barcelona-born director completes her trilogy centered around her family.   It will premiere in cinemas on September 5. Have a listen to our Filling the Sink podcast on 'Alcarràs' and the life of Carla Simón. Get the day's biggest stories right to your phone v1.1.0. Copyright © 2025. Powered by EBANTIC. All rights reserved. Your Ads Privacy ChoicesIMDb Carla Simón’s award-winning story of a peach farmer struggling to make ends meet asks many important questions about our relationship with the land and the human cost of progress Simón’s debut was the wonderfully tender childhood study Summer 1993 and Alcarràs is her very accomplished follow-up I felt it didn’t quite have the same immediately accessible richness and sweetness empathic and subtle movie which engulfs you in its dust and sweat and heat is a middleaged farmer who lives with his clan in a rambling rented house with its own swimming pool whose delicious fruit he is getting ready to harvest: backbreakingly hard work which he does by hand with family members together with some African immigrant labour as does his son Roger (Albert Bosch) – though Dolors has onerous housework and childcare as well as having to massage Quimet’s aching back with little thanks from her grumpy and depressed husband Their teen daughter Mariona (Xénia Roset) is busy rehearsing a dance number for the town’s summer talent show likes playing in an abandoned car in the farmland with her cousins Pau (Isaac Rovira) and Pere (Joel Rovira) strange grownups arrive one day and take away her beloved car: this is an awful omen of the problems to come The supermarkets are offering Quimet insultingly low prices for his produce and like other farmers he is getting ready for a mass protest Pinyol (Jacob Diarte) has in any case curtly informed him that all the peach trees are to be ripped out and replaced with solar panels Quimet’s elderly father Rogelio (Josep Abad) failed to get their land-tenancy in writing: it was merely a gentleman’s agreement with Pinyol’s late father which the son has ignored This agony tears their family apart: Quimet is enraged that his way of life has been cancelled but his sister and brother-in-law want to take the solar panel deal and his son Roger is in any case hurt at his father’s contemptuous indifference to all his new ideas on irrigation Movies about rural ways of life are often supposed to be all about the sacred There is just one continuous throb of anxiety: whether the crop will fail whether it will be underpriced by the supermarket buyers And now the whole system has been thrown out There is a new harvest to be gathered: solar power Simón’s film asks us: is Quimet right to be outraged or not Is there something sacred about the planting loyal to a business that has not brought him satisfaction almost self-harming in Quimet’s protest stunt: he dumps a mountain of his precious peaches outside the supermarket offices: a vast squelchy pile symbolising his wretchedness and rage Alcarràs is released on 6 January in cinemas Reviews Following a few static shots to convey the rustic beauty of its farmland setting, Spanish director Carla Simón opens her delicate second feature “Alcarràs” with a moment that later on will read like a premonition of the beginning of the end for her characters’ way of life.  Iris (Ainet Jounou) the youngest daughter in a family of peach farmers in the town that gives the film its name plays with her twin cousins inside a discarded car—their favorite place to have imaginative adventures the spell of their fantasies is broken when an excavator’s bucket claw appears to remove the vehicle from a field the image resembles the instance in Jenga when a player withdraws a piece that sets the structure off balance their enviable world is about to crumble.   In the kitchen of the clan’s home, the stubborn patriarch, Quimet (Jordi Pujol Dolcet), and his tranquil elderly father, Rogelio (Josep Abad) The soil they’ve worked on since after the Spanish Civil War doesn’t belong to them but to the Pinyols wealthy landowners who had given their word never to take it away from them the Pinyol son has decided to retract that promise and install profitable solar panels.  Quimet’s sole option to remain on the land is to stop farming and take a job maintaining the new technology. It’s a tale as old as time, of how the vertiginous walk of modernity and ambition crush ancient loolivelihoods. Last year’s Maltese standout, “Luzzu,” offered a similar look at the woes of generations of fishermen in that Mediterranean nation.  Amid tableaus of sundrenched landscapes, Simón’s instinct for eliciting naturalistic performances—displayed in her feature debut “Summer 1993“—marries a remarkably stealth narrative structure that lets us into the lives of these people new information about one of the members of this zealous household emerges in a fluid rotation Certain sequences in the second half of this slice-of-life drama drag but they ultimately find their course to a satisfying resolution.  Simón took on the risk of having a child protagonist without previous acting experience She expands on that in “Alcarràs,” obtaining lived-in depictions of everyday behavior and interactions from an entire cast of first-time actors who almost shockingly considering their rapport As with “Summer 1993,” the gamble pays off in great dividends with Pujol Dolcet and Abad deserving the most praise.  As for the younger generation, the interest in the labor-intensive business varies. Roger (Albert Bosch), Quimet’s teenage son, feels pride in the fruits of his manual labor, so much so that his father begrudges his disinterest in school. His sister, on the other hand, Mariona (Xènia Roset), prefers to dance to modern tunes with friends. She resents the macho dynamics that both Quimet and Roger display to assert control over the family’s women.  In turn, Quimet’s unraveling transforms him from an inflexible and demanding self-anointed martyr incapable of asking for help into a man who grasps the importance of community, not only within his immediate loved ones but with other farmers also struggling financially. A hundred voices ring louder than a lone one.  Grandpa Rogelio tries to appeal to honor, to the bond he believed unbreakable between the landlords’ ancestors and him. But the world today no longer operates with the loyalty he remembers. Though he won’t verbalize it, we witness an unspoken surrender to the greedy forces he can’t control. So Rogelio sings more often than he speaks, and via his tunes of friendship and love of the land, those treasured principles reach young Iris.  Those multigenerational legacies matter most in “Alcarràs.” While the obvious one relates to harvesting peaches for a living, it’s in the intangible sense of unity and cooperation passed on that there’s real value. Simón reaffirms this through an impromptu show the children put on for the adults that ends in a solemn celebration of Rogelio, or in the multistep process of canning fruit where every single person in the house plays a part.  Originally from Mexico City, Carlos Aguilar was chosen as one of 6 young film critics to partake in the first Roger Ebert Fellowship organized by RogerEbert.com, the Sundance Institute and Indiewire in 2014.  This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks. The action you just performed triggered the security solution. 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Tap to enable a layout that focuses on the article Print In the opening moments of Spanish filmmaker Carla Simón’s “Alcarràs” — Spain’s submission to the Academy Awards for international feature — the peach-farming Sole family’s littlest members watch as one of their favorite playthings an abandoned car on the edge of their orchard is removed by a huge crane that’s come from seemingly out of nowhere Proud adherents to a vanishing agricultural tradition of close-knit clans working land as a way of life the Soles are coming to grips with the fact that they’re the next targets for a brutal displacement Inspired by the writer-director’s own background — Simón hails from a family of Catalan peach-pickers — “Alcarràs” follows her similarly autobiographical debut feature “Summer 1993,” by depicting another naturalistic emotionally astute and exquisitely bittersweet season of heat and anguish in this case possibly the last time the Soles get to do what they’ve been doing for generations They face eviction because grandfather Rogelio (Josep Abad) — gentle keeper of the old ways and the stories that bind them to the landowners — never secured a signed contract from their wealthy benefactors whose ancestors were once sheltered by the Soles when fascists hunted the gentry But a simpler era’s handshake promise means little when today’s business-minded owners plan to cut down the fruit trees and install solar panels bad back and ill temper of Rogelio’s hard-driving son Quimet (Jordi Pujol Dolcet) Ignoring what’s imminent while overseeing a sped-up harvest he shows little concern for how his volatility is affecting the cohesion of his extended many of whom live under the same roof yet don’t see their situation the same way While the younger cousins frolic in what’s one big rural playground for them puts on a brave face running the household And while his sister and brother-in-law see adaptation as necessary the oldest kids — pop-music-loving preteen Mariona (Xènia Roset) and college-aged Roger (Albert Bosch) growing pot secretly on the property — live in a watchful unsettled state of wanting to honor the life they’ve always known yet grasping a need for independence It’s invigorating how lived-in “Alcarràs” feels in its documentary-like details leafy warmth of Daniela Cajías’ cinematography even as the movie shows all the hallmarks of a carefully mapped story of hearts and minds colliding and caroming off into different directions yet always trying to get back to common ground One meeting point is realizing who the true enemies are: industrial giants that flatten prices and drive people away from farming the family that protests together stays together Simón’s brilliant way with non-professional actors is fast becoming a cornerstone of her style of observant And for a group of first-timers who aren’t related to each other off-camera — selecting already-connected family members being a common approach for neo-realists looking for a helpful shorthand — this cast immediately exudes a woven well-worn authenticity of toil and togetherness It extends from the unbridled kid energy and guilelessness of playtime field marshal Iris (Ainet Jounou) to Abad’s melancholic patriarch Rogelio who seeks private moments with the natural beauty that gave his life meaning played by Dolcet with Bob Hoskins-like bullheadedness is hardly a one-note figure in his relentlessness and rage — in moments of drunken revelry and vulnerability he’s as much the heart of the family as anyone else a modern reality that cannot be stopped or slowed by faster picking or grandpa’s gifts of freshly pulled produce or freshly killed rabbits laid at a titleholder’s doorstep as if what was happening amounted to a neighborly dispute who struggle as honest land stewards in a time of heartless industry it nurtures to a palpable ripeness the beauty and burden in these all-too-hidden lives In Spanish with English subtitlesNot ratedRunning time: 2 hoursPlaying: Starts Jan. 6, Laemmle Monica, Santa Monica; Laemmle Glendale; available Feb. 24 on Mubi Hollywood Inc. Entertainment & Arts Movies Subscribe for unlimited accessSite Map Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker NEWSLETTER SIGN UP There’s trouble on the horizon in Alcarràs directed by Carla Simón and shot by Bolivian DP Daniela Cajías AEC Set in the tiny rural Catalonian town of the same name where Simón’s own relatives have cultivated peaches for generations the story revolves around an extended family facing eviction from their farm after the owner of the estate dies and his lifetime heir decides to sell the land to an alternative energy company This will see the native peach orchards supplanted by solar panels featuring an entire ensemble of non-professional actors It also collected five-star reviews for its authentic masterful and moving contemplation on the fragility of family life versus the remorseless industrial development of agriculture as well as praise for Cajías’ observational camera capturing its many characters in the sunshine and shadows around the farm What did you feel about the script for Alcarràs It awoke a lot of sensations and thoughts in me and for a few days I couldn’t sleep because a lot of ideas went through my head I knew it would be a very big challenge to work on a film with so many characters and non-professional actors which is the most interesting thing about this project it was a big challenge in terms of portraying the continuous communications and exchanges between the characters and deciding what presence the camera would have in that I thought the camera was essentially a member of the family perhaps someone who is no longer with them Tell us about your conversations with Carla about the look of the film Carla and I talked a lot about the cordiality and conviviality of family life and the creative part flowed a lot from that is based around real events that happened to Carla’s family on the maternal side So the first real step was an introduction to the world of agriculture in that area of Catalonia who told me first-hand what they lived through and how hard life is in the countryside I watched many hours of home videos she had recorded over the last 15 years since that was part of what we wanted to convey someone from within who records the family The most important thing was to find a tone of reality We wanted everything that happens in front of the camera to feel casual – that the camera adapts to the actors The challenge was that it should not be noticed that the film seemed more like a documentary although in reality the interiors had to be well-lit to create the mood and atmosphere we wanted to achieve for each scene Along with visiting Carla’s family and looking at her home videos the most important being El Àrbol De Los Clogs (The Tree Of Wooden Clogs) (1978) which was directed and shot by Hermano Olmi We were also influenced by Alice Rohrwacher’s films such as Le Meraviglie (The Wonders) (2014) and Lazzaro Felice (Happy As Lazzaro) (2018) (both shot by DP Hélène Louvart AFC) where everything was carefully planned scene-by-scene How much preparation time and when/where did you shoot but in reality Carla and I started working on the film seven months before we started shooting We shot everything on location around Alcarràs so as to capture the seasonal peach harvest but had a four-day break due to a case of Covid at the end of July What cameras and lenses did you select and why and the camera arrived the day before we started shooting We shot with the ARRI Alexa Mini – it’s the digital camera that I know and like the most with the camera rated between 400 and 800 ISO I decided to use optics that I already knew but waited until the final DI to adjust the colouring Why did you decide to frame the film in 1.66:1 Being a film that has quite a few shots with several characters in the same frame – we felt 1.66:1 was the best way for them to fit comfortably into the shot in addition to it being a great format for close-ups and landscapes As Alcarràs was a Spanish/Italian co-production I had several Italians and Catalonians in the team with Mauro Calanca working as focus puller but despite not knowing one another we were a great They knew how to adapt to the particularities of this shoot adults and old people who made up our cast and often in very hot and harsh conditions and I cannot be more proud and grateful to my team in being sensitive to that it’s the first time I’ve not operated the camera I preferred to concentrate on the lighting and stay focused on the narrative the camera was always at the service of the characters and we went handheld so that we could get very close to them when needed The motivations for moving with or staying-on the characters always had to do with changing the point-of-view in the film My lighting package came from Kinolux in Barcelona The premise of the film was always about realism and naturalism and I worked a lot with natural-looking light If the scene or the location did not allow that As we were shooting with non-professional actors it was important not to intervene too much I did not want to take many breaks and have to relight a scene when we changed camera positions The dark/night scene at the beginning of the film starts with sudden camera movements on a moving car and the light of a flashlight as they go looking for rabbits in the trees Then we move inside the car and see the characters trying to kill rabbits with a shotgun as they have a conversation but instead of buying one online or whatever I asked the local foresters to lend us a flashlight they use which we connected to the car battery for power We used the car headlights and had a LED softbox on the roof to set an overall base level of lighting outside and had LED tubes to illuminate the interior of the car Where did you do the final DI colour grade to portray the space of Alcarràs and for the image to transport us to that place Angelo understood me perfectly and we worked very well together How did this film challenge or boost your skills as a cinematographer Alcarràs is without a doubt the most difficult film I’ve made so far I feel like I’ve grown and learned a lot and the biggest challenge was with my cinematography ego on many occasions I had to give in and not have the perfect image and I feel that have matured as a cinematographer A landmark new pilot study from ScreenSkills and 4Skills, conducted by Ampere Analysis, has provided a first of its kind detailed look at the British Screen... The International Cinematographers Guild (ICG, IATSE Local 600) has announced the tentative results of its 2025 national election. John Lindley ASC, has been... The Production Guild of Great Britain (PGGB) has confirmed that Kaye Elliott will join as its new CEO commencing 16th July 2025.   Elliott joins PGGB from... Necessary cookies are required to enable the basic features of this site, such as providing secure log-in or adjusting your consent preferences. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable data. Functional cookies help perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collecting feedback, and other third-party features. Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics such as the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc. Performance cookies are used to understand and analyse the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors. Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with customised advertisements based on the pages you visited previously and to analyse the effectiveness of the ad campaigns. 'Wolfgang' opened in cinemas this weekend and instantly topped box office sales across Spain.  The film, an adaptation of a novel of the same name by Laia Aguilar, directed by filmmaker Javier Ruiz Caldera, attracted 95,411 spectators in cinemas across Spain in its first three days, collecting €677,127 in ticket sales. These figures make it the most successful debut for a Catalan language feature film in recent years, surpassing 'El 47', which saw 32,812 spectators all across Spain, bringing in €245,245 in its first days in theatres. It also surpasses 'Casa en flames', which had 20,490 spectators on its opening weekend, taking in €148,069 at the box office, as well as 'Alcarràs', which gathered 59,273 spectators made €419,411. 'Wolfgang' performed better on its debut weekend than 'El 47', which during its run in cinemas in Spain attracted 600,000 viewers across the country, collecting a total of €3.8 million at the box office. Marcel Barrena's work is the Catalan film that has attracted the most viewers in at least four decades, overtaking the half a million viewers of 'Plaça del Diamant', from 1982. The almost 100,000 viewers of 'Wolfgang' between March 14 and 16 accounted for 17% of the total number of attendees in cinemas throughout Spain. 'Wolfgang' was being shown in 320 cinemas across the country, with an average collection of around €2,000 each. Starring Jordi Catalán and Miki Esparbé, 'Wolfgang (Extraordinary)' tells the story of a boy with a high IQ and autism spectrum disorder, who is forced to live with his father whom he has never seen before, after the death of his mother. Director Ruiz Caldera explained in an interview with the Catalan News Agency that he wanted to approach the project with "responsibility," aware that it dealt with "deep" issues. "It's a film for all ages, and I think it's beautiful because it's not so common," Ruiz Caldera said. Your Ads Privacy ChoicesIMDb Inspired by her own rural upbringing after her parents both died the Barcelona‑born film‑maker’s latest movie won the top prize in Berlin for its vivid portrayal of Catalonia’s peach farmers where children run wild between multigenerational family meals in the sun they are built on a hard foundation of bitter reality a story underpinned by the challenges faced by farmers across Europe the Solé family lives under immediate threat of eviction while Summer 1993 is based on Simón’s own experience as a child after the death of both her parents Simón’s stories brim with the hope carried by new generations – the main theme now in her own life the director whose full name is Carla Simón Pipó is cheerfully wide awake despite the recent birth of a son who speaks Catalan-accented perfect English sober business suit matching the formality of a meeting room in a distinctly corporate West End hotel; Manel occasionally comes into view outside the wall’s glass panel Spain’s entry for the 2023 Oscars, Alcarràs is named after a town in western Catalonia and is one of the most vivid expressions of rural realism in recent cinema It’s partly because of the no-frills beauty of the stark flat landscape where it is set (“We call it the Catalan far west,” says Simón) and partly because of a large ensemble cast that totally convinces as a family – from Iris to grandparents who embody the long-term memory of the region and its civil war travails A scene from Alcarràs: except for the director’s sister every actor in the film is non‑professional Photograph: AlamyEvery actor in the film is non-professional who was also involved in the casting – a process that involved about 9,000 potential candidates for roles because the farmers have similar kinds of personality because of the fruit they pick.” So peach farmers have different personalities from apple farmers “Not apples – but people who cultivate cereals are more relaxed because they don’t have to deal with a lot of workers they don’t have to be there at a specific time because otherwise it’ll go bad on the trees The main casting problem was persuading farmers to take part in a summer shoot “They were like: ‘In summer I have my harvest so don’t talk about films because I have no time.’” In the end where peach growers protest for better prices but gave up and now works in a village hall: “It’s a similar story to the one in the film,” says Simón Alcarràs is about rural communities’ struggle for survival inspired by Simón’s own upbringing in a farming family “The idea came to me when my grandfather died as a family we share this space and we take it for granted but what would happen if one day it didn’t exist Many people are abandoning their land because this way of doing agriculture in small family groups is not sustainable any more Because when you want to leave the land to your children and grandchildren was moved to comment: “Behind Alcarràs’s apparent simplicity lies a meticulous director with hundreds of hours’ worth of work to make this masterpiece look like a documentary.” “lived in this moment of freedom all over Spain – a happy moment the amount of heroin that got into the country and there’s a whole generation that died of it.” What made me happy is that many people from other areas of Spain came to me and said: ‘This is my village’Judging by Summer 1993 the young Simón’s new home was a fairly bohemian environment; in the film modern jazz plays constantly (Simón’s brother contributed to the score) and indeed her adoptive father used to play bass so obviously there was something arty in the house.” she returned to Barcelona to study film and still lives there she spent four years at the London Film School including one about two children encountering death for the first time – which prompted her to make Summer 1993 “There’s also something that is more about personality The big problem in this family is that they cannot communicate We pretty much just shut up too much,” she laughs On the subject of Catalan independence Simón has tended to declare herself an agnostic I have feelings for Spanish culture and Catalan culture in a similar way – for me the important thing to take from what happened is that we can manage politics in a more local way It shouldn’t be the Spanish government that decides how we manage our money in Catalonia.” which she says will be more poetic and surreal than her previous work Alcarràs is in cinemas in the UK and Ireland This is the archive of The Observer up until 21/04/2025. The Observer is now owned and operated by Tortoise Media. Catalonia took to cinema very early.  In 1897 – the same time the Lumière brothers were active in neighboring France – the first fiction film in the history of Catalan and Spanish cinema was shot on a café-bar terrace outside the Vapor Vell factory in Sants Fructuós Gelabert's 'Riña en un café' (Fight in a Café) nevertheless sparked the beginning of a golden age for Catalan cinema.  The early 20th century was a time of innovation with Catalan cinema a trailblazer in Spain.  This was all abruptly halted by the Spanish Civil War and the subsequent Franco dictatorship including a ban on films in Catalan.  Catalan cinema – and especially cinema in Catalan – can be said to be enjoying a new golden age with more than 700,000 people – 728,435 to be exact – watching a film in the Catalan language in cinemas in Catalonia more than double the previous record back in 2010 and all the more impressive for coming at a time when cinema attendances are dropping in general.  Two films have led the charge at the box office First, the summer hit 'Casa en flames' (A House on Fire) a comedy drama about a middle-class Catalan family reuniting for a weekend on the Costa Brava.  It made over €3 million at the Spanish box office the most commercially successful film in Catalan in decades only to be surpassed just a few months later.  'El 47' (The 47) tells the true story of social struggles in Barcelona in the 1970s centered on a bus driver who hijacks a bus and drives it to the Torre Baró neighborhood in protest at the lack of public transport.  It became the most watched film in Catalan in 40 years, made over €3.25 million at the Spanish box office, and won five Goyas at Spain's equivalent of the Oscars.  The 47 also swept the board at the Catalan Film Academy's Gaudí Awards he told Catalan News of the significance of The 47's success.  "It's the very first time in Spanish history that a Catalan film shot in Catalan is number one at the box office," Barrena said.  "Now we can go to big platforms like Prime we want to shoot in Catalan,' because it's possible to make a huge impact and achieve great success."  The 47's success marks only the second time that a Catalan-language film has won the Best Picture at the Goya Awards after 'Pa negre' (Black Bread) in 2011.  there have been more English-language Best Picture winners.  a drama from Mallorcan director Agustí Villaronga set in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War marked a turning point for cinema in Catalan.  As well as its success at the Goyas – it won nine awards in total – it was also the first film in Catalan to be chosen by the Spanish Academy for Oscars consideration in the Best International Feature Film category (Best Foreign Language Film as it was then known).  Catalan cinema has had international recognition too, most notably Carla Simón’s Alcarràs winning the Golden Bear at the Berlinale in 2022.  the winner of the top prize at one of the world’s most prestigious film festivals was Catalan.  telling the story of the last fruit harvest that a family goes through on their farm where they have cultivated peaches for generations before they must leave the land after the owners decide to install solar panels.  While the film was also a box office success making more than €1.5 million in its first month on release across Spain it has been outdone by The 47 and A House on Fire.  told Catalan News: "Before we had been in festivals and Catalan cinema was very internationalized There's no greater recognition in cinema than the Oscars and Catalonia was well-represented at the 2024 ceremony Ultimately, the two films missed out, but it marked yet another step forward for Catalan cinema in a landmark year and a new golden age.  Carla Simón’s powerful drama of a battle to save an ancestral peach farm from redevelopment is given added potency by nonprofessional actors A thriving peach farm in the rural heartland of Catalonia is also the fertile earth that sustains multiple generations of an extended family It’s the repository of the stories passed down from weathered grannies in funereal black cardigans to each fresh branch of an ever-spreading ancestral tree It’s the launchpad for games of imagination for Iris (Ainet Jounou) and her semi-feral twin cousins It’s a perpetual battleground: the men patrol at night with shotguns and spotlights alert for rabbit incursions into the orchards At the start of Carla Simón’s terrific second feature (her first was the equally impressive 2017 drama Summer 1993) a bombshell drops: after the death of his father the new owner of the land does not intend to honour the gentleman’s agreement that permitted the family to cultivate it for the last three generations the trees will be grubbed out and replaced by solar panels It’s such a devastating blow that it’s hard for the family members to comprehend denial temporarily damming up the realities that will change the land beyond recognition But Simón’s acute eye shows how stress fractures appear in the family; how a domestic ecosystem can be as precariously balanced as a natural one Persuasively lived-in performances – Simón cast nonprofessional actors from the region in which the story unfolds – give the Catalan-language picture both its urgent naturalism and its potent sense of anger and injustice Watch a trailer for Alcarràs.This is the archive of The Observer up until 21/04/2025 The Observer is now owned and operated by Tortoise Media Award-winning follow-up to Simón’s beguiling Summer 1993 A family toil on a peach farm threatened with destruction in Carla Simón's elegant drama Peaches glow like tiny suns in the Catalan village of Alcarràs They hang lush and ripe from the hundreds of trees that form the Solé family’s orchard beloved land,” sings the grandfather in praise of the earth that has fed and nurtured his household for decades and in mourning for the devastation that looms on the horizon the second feature from director Carla Simón a farmland under threat causes a hardworking family unit to splinter A man’s promise years before is now no longer enough to secure the Solés’ ownership of the orchards and the legal proprietor of the land wants to raze the fruit trees and install solar panels in their place Brother Quimet (Jordi Pujol Dolcet) continues with the harvest while siblings and spouses also try to maintain normality The film strikes a deft balance between idyllic reminiscence and melancholy for a cherished place meandering through the narrative to dwell on the hideaways and favourite spots of the family It is also a poignant tale about the impact of industrial development on agriculture to the precarity of work for Black labourers The cinematography of Daniela Cajías complements these parallels as the village’s hazy golden light hovers between idealistic memory and oppressive heat teenage insecurities and Small Town ennui on top of this the film becomes an incredibly layered and moving reflection on coming to terms with your position in a time and a place and what to do when the ground crumbles beneath you Where Simón’s previous film, Summer 1993 had orphan Frida as its emotional focal point Alcarràs takes a broader look at the Solés as a group individual narratives into their crisis as a community Simón’s knack for bringing beautifully naturalistic performances out of actors (in this case is clear again here; young Iris (Ainet Jounou) is one of the film’s highlights The power of Alcarràs lies in the filmmaker’s care for and understanding of her subject which is a story taken from her own life and examined on screen with a deceiving charm that gives way to a deeply emotional narrative for all its moments of simplicity and practical work: as mothers and sisters peel peaches with paring knives and encase them in glossy syrups as fruits tumble in their hundreds from buckets into pallets or as parents teach children how to find the ripest crop LWLies 107: The Sinners issue – Out now! Ryan Coogler: ‘I’m more confident in my film language than I am in my English’ I’m Not Even Supposed To Be Here Today: The Video Shop at the End of the World The 2025 Cannes Film Festival line-up is here! The empty showboat of cinematic one-shots Inside the academic conference taking Terrifier back to school By Kyle Turner A young peasant boy embarks on a transformative journey in Alice Rohrwacher’s enchanting socialist fable By Lillian Crawford The impact of the AIDS crisis in Catalonia told through the eyes of a six-year-old girl Little White Lies was established in 2005 as a bi-monthly print magazine committed to championing great movies and the talented people who make them we’ve been described as being “at the vanguard of the independent publishing movement.” Our reviews feature a unique tripartite ranking system that captures the different aspects of the movie-going experience When it came to the kind of crops that the family at the center of Carla Simón’s second film “Alcarràs” would harvest on their farm in Catalonia the director knew immediately what to grow it was very important that we use peaches because it’s something that you are in a rush to pick,” Simón said “So if you don’t pick in the right time This is not the same with other kind of fruit That’s why the farmers who farm peaches are really always intentional because they have to do it when it’s the right moment and it’s a small period of three days.” Simón would seem to have this in common with her characters having an extraordinary ability to let moments blossom in front of the camera uncanny in their naturalism yet holding a magical spark that creates the kind of escapism exclusive to the cinema This wasn’t an easy feat when the director could no longer be sure if the seasons would still line up with the production after it was scheduled for a summer 2020 start date that was delayed until proper protocols were developed to film during the pandemic after meticulously taking the time to cultivate the feel of real family amongst her cast over the course of months in a house not unlike the one amidst the fields she’d ultimately use for her set Simón showed similar patience and attention to detail when she scheduled days around which part of the peach grove would be ready to flourish “It happened to us once that we got to a place that it was not ready and we had to hang some peaches,” she admits it’s not that you have only one kind of peaches you have many and they are picked at different times you could go here or there and always find something that was ready to be picked.” It’s an approach that yields every scene in “Alcarràs” to be as sweet as the fruit that’s seen plucked from the trees bearing a nostalgic warmth that no doubt stems from Simón taking inspiration from recollections of childhood visits to her aunt and uncle’s farm but a vibrancy that comes from not knowing what’s going to happen next when she recognizes the limits to her memory and tells of the present-day struggle for the agricultural industry in the region with three generations living under one roof are buffered from the concerns of the outside world the prepubescent Iris (Ainet Jounou) and her twin nephews Pau (Joel Rovira) and Pere (Isaac Rovira) play in an abandoned car that sits outside the orchard perhaps an ominous sign for the adults yet a vehicle for the kids that lets their minds race as far as their imaginations will take them everyone in “Alcarràs” sees the land differently – to the family’s patriarch Rogelio (Josep Abad) it’s an inheritance from a handshake deal he once made with its previous owners who he helped hide during the Spanish Civil War; to his son Quimet it’s a lifelong obligation to continue the family legacy with increasingly diminishing returns and to Quimet’s son Roger it’s a waystation while he decides what’s to become of the rest of his life conscious of the bleak future the farm faces when farmers are no longer able to depend on the timetable they’ve used for generations as climate change rears its ugly head and see their labor valued far less — and it doesn’t go unnoticed that no matter what their age the women all have a similar restlessness on the property as Iris albeit without her optimism or the greater array of options available to the men with Quimet’s underappreciated wife Dolors (Anna Otin) keeping the household running while their teen daughter Mariona (Xènia Roset) looks beyond it only to see the construction of solar panels in the distance that suggest how behind the times her family is Being able to witness these shifts in the culture from simply the perspectives inside this one family proves to be just one magnificent achievement of many in “Alcarràs,” a remarkable balancing act in so many regards that feels completely effortless and knowing that couldn’t be the case it was such a pleasure to get to sit down with Simón at the recently concluded AFI Fest in Los Angeles to talk about the film which is Spain’s official selection for this year’s Oscars and how her deliberate approach to filmmaking results in such a feeling of spontaneity as well as finding first-time actors from the community she tells her stories about and the rejuvenating experience making it became following the pandemic Recently something Mia Hansen-Love said has been kicking around in my mind – that films become the memories of her life when she’s making these autofictions You operate at a little bit more of a remove but does it seem like something similar happens for you Yeah, it’s true that this happens. Actually, it happens a lot with “Summer 1993” now that there are some memories that maybe they are not real so I feel they are real because memories are like that They keep changing all the time because you don’t remember what happened in reality you remember the last memory you had about what happened in reality When you make a film about something that is very close to your life it’s normal that because you end up using this material in a way that it has to work for a story you don’t even remember what was real or what you changed for the film so it works in a narrative way It happened with me with “Summer” and also with “Alcarràs,” although it’s not as autobiographical The set-up is real because my family grew peaches in Alcarràs The idea only came to me when my grandfather died and I was writing “Summer 1993” and I thought for the first time what would happen if this place that we all share one day disappears Because it’s a place that you take for granted because we’ve all been there all the time “This would be a nice plot that they have to leave this land,” but then talking to my uncles I realized this is [actually] happening to many people now which is very strange for me because cultivating the land in small family groups is something that we’ve been doing as human beings since historical times the oldest job in the world is disappearing because the model of doing that are changing You’ve said that you originally envisioned a happier ending but you had to be true to the reality of the situation was it interesting to navigate what you were witnessing in the present versus how much of a nostalgic portrait you wanted to make of this place and I have a cousin who may want to do the same I [thought] these people are really resistant And I had this mindset when we were starting to develop the project but we started talking to my uncles and to [my co-writer] Arnau [Vilaro]’s family because they are also farmers and we talked to a lot of farmers in the casting process and I realized that their view is really pessimistic on this way of doing agriculture And [it] was very important that it was faithful to what’s happening there so it felt naive if we had a happy ending because this is not how they see things now There was this big demonstration that was actually the place where we found [Jordi Pujol Dolcet] the actor who would play Quimet and they were very happy because they said [there] are a lot of us here now today and they were not many and they were quite old And I realized that if this is a happy day for them this means that it’s really very hard that this way of doing agriculture is going to last Did you work with the entire community to bring them into the production I honestly couldn’t tell whether those big crowd scenes like the protests or the local festival might be recreations or embedding in what was already happening was to shoot like the neorealist filmmakers They went to a festivity and shot there and everything felt very real We had to postpone the shooting for a year I still had hoped that we would be able to do it like that but then everyone was still wearing masks and there weren’t a lot of festivities yet because it was summer 2021 so we had to recreate [them] and the demonstration We had done this huge casting process — we saw about 9,000 people and it was interesting because we could [select] the good actors or people that we liked to come as extras so it was a long process but it was worth it because it’s really hard to recreate these places with people that are from there Do you pretty fixed ideas when you’re looking for the main cast There are some things that go more by intuition I knew Quimet had to be someone a little bit tender The grandfather was [who] I was most picky with in terms of physical features because I really wanted to find my own grandpa somehow We ended up finding these men who actually knew my grandfather and he was the same kind of man I’m really free when it comes to physical [qualities] what’s the relationship with the land that Quimet has a teenager son the same age as Roger has a really nice relationship with her grandfather playing with the other ones just to see how she [interacts] and I realize she’s quite bossy When I see they have some similarities to the character that is written that is something that is a huge value because they can be more themselves when making the film When we last spoke for “Summer 1993,” you said how you were able to shape performances in the editing room with the kids in particular Did knowing how that could work help on this What’s very important is that we get to the shoot with a strong intimacy between the actors surrounded by beech trees instead of peach trees all the time they could – in the afternoons and also weekends and we would just spend a lot of time together building moments that could have happened before the story of “Alcarràs.” It was a similar process as “Summer 1993,” but in this case a friend of [Josep Abad] who played the grandfather and then his son inherited the land and he made them to go to court — we even had a friend of mine coming in being a lawyer to help them It was making a prequel of the film just for them to get to the shoot ready We worked a lot on the small things of the relationships Like Roger and Quimet have this tricky relationship as father and son They even built a cabin so they would know what it means when someone takes it out from them We worked on all this and then at some point I don’t want them to learn it by heart We rehearse the scenes in a way that they would know what they are going to be playing and because there are some things that are complicated it was always make a medium between following the script because I really want to follow it and say what is written but it’s not important the way they say it It blew my mind to learn that you only used one camera and yet you have all of these big ensemble scenes where you’re catching reactions with such skill it’s actually hard to shoot with more than one camera I’ve done it for television a couple [times] but I’m not used to it and obviously in this film we thought about having more than one camera in some scenes repeating [a scene to get both sides of it] they didn’t have to repeat because it was improvisations Sometimes I repeat [a scene] for them to get used to it the first week of shooting was quite hard [on them] for this and there were scenes where we had to plan very well it was almost [limited to] one shot because it was too much time to dry [off after jumping] and one of the toughest [scenes] was the meal when they are eating the snails [because] this was a lot of repetition What I tried to do is a little bit of improvisation and we do a little bit of more improvisation so each take would be a little bit different [for them] but the costume design really adds to the liveliness of the film And the first step is to look at what they wear usually [at work] and take all the ideas from that We had a couple of days where they brought everything that could be used in summer and then [Anna] expanded the wardrobe according to the style but the difficult part with this film was the matching because I care a lot about color and they were a lot of characters so we had to make sure there weren’t two people wearing the same color and we kind of made a composition that felt real and lively it was inside the color palette that we designed Given how skilled you are at engineering those scenes was it more difficult figuring out how to work with all the farm equipment involved The good thing about this is that because nobody [filmed] in this place before “We are looking for this big machine,” and we would have three options because [the community] talks a lot We also ended up hiring someone who would drive these machines from one place to the other Quimet is a farmer so he knows how to drive a tractor and Roger but it was quite a lot of production work and a collective effort with all the people from the area helping us to get what we needed Could you approach this with more confidence generally after having a feature under your belt I felt a lot of pressure after “Summer” because you feel these expectations from people and you don’t want to hear these voices The most important thing about the “Alcarràs” experience is that I could work on the way I wanted to work On “Summer,” I had a lot of intuitions that we couldn’t always do the way I wanted because of budget I could say I need this to rehearse for four months with these people and my producer would say “Okay.” Or we need to do a one year casting for this because otherwise this is going to be difficult We spent a lot of money and time with the preparation which is not the usual way of making a film but this film needed that and I think you gain this trust once you have the one film that people see that your way of working can work What was it like to get people together again once it was more safe to do so we got together and even [the cast] hadn’t spent that much time with their own families and suddenly we found ourselves creating a new family and I was very worried when we had to postpone because you never know how you will change over a year because it was a strange year when we could meet What’s it getting this out into the world Because it’s a very intimate environment while you are doing it and it’s very local so we never thought that it could get that far we were really happy and surprised that to see the reaction of the people reacting the way we wanted and it was a very warm first screening for me even though the room in Berlin was half empty because of the [COVID] protocol The happiest story with the film is that because it got the Golden Bear and there were many small villages that hadn’t opened their cinema for ages and they reopened it to show the film because it was the way that all the people from the village could be able to see it Some of them even kept doing some programming after showing “Alcarràs,” so that was so cool You must be logged in to post a comment This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. The release of films in Catalan and the number of viewers for these films have been stagnant for years.   In 2011, the Catalan government signed an agreement with major Hollywood studios and the Cinema Association of Catalonia to release 25 films dubbed in Catalan each year.   The agreement with the 'big five' studios - Universal Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros., Walt Disney Studios and Sony Pictures - has consistently fallen short.   In fact, the highest number of films dubbed into Catalan in a single year was 16, achieved in 2012, the year after the agreement was signed. The agreement aimed to increase the audience share of Catalan dubbed films from 3% to a projected 35% by 2017. More than a decade later, both the availability of films in Catalan and the audience numbers remain at around 3%. Francesc Xavier Vila, secretary of linguistic policy, attributed the failure to meet the agreement to the Covid-19 pandemic and the Hollywood actors' and studios' strike in 2023. The Big Five studios dubbed a total of 136 blockbusters into Catalan between 2012 and 2024, averaging around 10 films per year, well below the agreed 25.  From 2017 to 2021, screenings of Catalan-dubbed films in cinemas consistently accounted for about 3% of all screenings. In 2023, approximately 434,000 tickets were sold in Catalonia for films in Catalan, either originally in Catalan or dubbed or subtitled, compared to 13 million tickets sold for films in Spanish, maintaining the 3% ratio.   Only in 2022, with the release of 'Alcarràs,' this figure temporarily rose to 5%. To learn more about the success of the Catalan film Alcarràs, which won the Berlinale's Golden Bear, and the life of its director, Carla Simón, listen to this episode of our podcast Filling the Sink. By 2022-11-23T14:30:00+00:00 Carla Simón and Colm Bairéad are the directors of Alcarràs and The Quiet Girl — Spain and Ireland’s entries to this year’s Oscars Two of the European submissions to the international feature film Oscar this year are moving stories of family dynamics set in rural farming environments Alcarràs is writer/director Carla Simón’s second feature after her award-winning autobiographical debut Summer 1993 The Catalan-language feature centres on a family of peach farmers who face an end to their way of life when their landlord plans to cut down the trees and install solar panels in the fields Alcarràs is an ensemble piece starring non-professional actors and is about family relationships generational tensions and the decline of traditional agriculture It world premiered in Competition at the Berlinale International sales are handled by mk2 Films with Mubi acquiring rights for multiple territ­ories including the UK and US Alcarràs has taken $2.3m at the Spanish box office following its April release by Avalon and Elastica Films Ireland’s entry to the Oscars is Colm Bairéad’s narrative feature debut The Quiet Girl (An Cailín Ciúin) an Irish-language adaptation of Claire Keegan’s 2010 novella Foster it is a first-person narrative told through the eyes of a quiet neglected girl who is sent away from her dysfunctional family to live with distant relatives for the summer on their farm The lead is played by now-12-year-old Catherine Clinch Dublin-born writer/director Bairéad’s Irish-language shorts and documentaries have earned him numerous award nominations and wins The Quiet Girl world premiered at the Berlinale in the Generation Kplus section It became the highest-grossing Irish-language film of all time around the world and is the first Irish-language drama to gross €1m ($1.02m) at the UK and Ireland box office Bankside Films handles international sales Break Out Pictures in partnership with Curzon released the film in the UK and Ireland while Neon’s Super has acquired it for the US Simón and Bairéad came together in a virtual conversation hosted by Screen International in October Colm Bairéad: Can I start by saying I’m a huge fan of your work I fell in love with Summer 1993 when it came out Even though it’s quite different from The Quiet Girl particularly in the way it inhabited that young girl’s point of view The Quiet Girl reminded me a lot of making Summer 93 it has themes of absence of the family and how she copes with this The emotions you portray are very similar to the ones I was trying to portray with my first film Screen International: Why did you both want to tell these stories Simón: My adoptive mum’s family grow peaches in Alcarras We would visit every summer and Christmas holidays we call it the “Catalan far west” because of the landscape I always thought there was something very cinematic there I realised we take some things for granted in families but a lot of people are abandoning the land in this area Agriculture as a small family business is not what it used to be — the models are changing I wanted to spend some time there and get to know my family’s business Bairéad: Claire Keegan is one of our great authors in Ireland I encountered her book in 2018 and fell completely in love with it Her aesthetic and her prose felt very visual to me I felt I was seeing the film as I was reading the work I’ve dealt with similar themes around family and loss so it spoke to me in terms of its thematic concerns as well Could you describe your approach to making your film Bairéad: I think it’s impossible for the personality of the filmmaker not to find an expression in the aesthetic of their film and even rather introverted and meditative I’m drawn to the idea of stillness and simplicity I can see the same philosophy endures there as well There’s a real commitment to simplicity and of not trying to make anything too ornate — and that’s why her films feel so authentic and truthful What’s fascinating to me about Alcarràs is how you’ve created a family You have put these people together who have this enormous energy that exists almost outside of the film [It seems as if] the camera came along and just happened to start filming them We purposely kept apart Catherine and Andrew Bennett so that their relationship actually grew in the filming We tried to film it as chronologically as possible for Catherine’s sake Simón: I was amazed watching your film — it is really well framed and so precise I always try to let the camera adapt to the actor so they don’t have to think where they need to be in the frame or did you give her some freedom when framing Bairéad: I would say it was a more traditional form of filmmaking We did have marks — I would always say to Catherine “Don’t be afraid to hide your emotions.” Because the camera will see them — the camera is an x-ray machine I remember seeing the first audition tape of Cath­erine and noticing myself leaning in because she had this understanding of the character — she was withholding the whole time and that has a strange magnetism to it We knew then that she was right for the part after seven months of trying to find the right person Simón: We did a long casting — it took about a year But this didn’t happen — every person came from a different family I rented a house and over four months we would work on improvising moments that could have happened before the story so we could build some shared memories among them we sat down and read the script just once — and in the last month before shooting we rehearsed the scenes of the film it’s important they don’t learn it by heart I like it when people talk as they do in real life — that is very difficult to write So shooting is always about finding the right equilibrium between giving them some room for improvisation and at the same time following the script were your actors allowed to improvise or was it more formal Colm Bairead on the set of ‘The Quiet Girl’ She has a wonderful grasp of the Irish patois and how we say a lot without saying very much I was keen to preserve her masterful dialogue I’m fascinated to see in Alcarràs that you’re dealing with multiple points of view Summer 1993 is completely immersed in this one point of view Was the change to multiple points of view daunting I don’t want to make a lot of ensemble films though I wanted to express cinematically what it means to be part of a big family where lots of things happen at the same time and the emotions of one person can affect the others But it’s complicated to connect the audience to the characters because they’re not with them all the time It’s demanding in terms of the script process and it made us think about where to put the camera We sat down with the heads of department for a week and where the camera would go for each scene and the transitions of the scenes Then you get to the editing — and some of this works and some doesn’t Bairéad: You also had another character in this film — the land itself The connection between the people and the land is beautifully rendered Simón: It was very important to not have an outsider’s point of view in the way we portrayed the land I wanted to tell the story from the inside of this family It was very easy to frame the landscape in a way that we find exotic — but we had to try to film it from inside That’s why the camera always goes with the characters Apart from the first three shots in the film We go with them and are with their emotions But sometimes it was hard — we could see a beautiful sunset and we would be pointing the camera away from it We trusted that the beauty would come from somewhere else Bairéad: Exterior landscapes were certainly important but the most important landscape is the Kinsellas’ house That house is the fourth most important character so finding it was as important as the casting process We found this house that hasn’t been modernised since the 1960s A great deal of the texture in the film belongs to that location We knew early on that we wanted this constrained aspect ratio that would mirror the first-person present-tense feel that you get in the book It is of someone who’s still making sense of the world The film is very much about being on the threshold of understanding things but not quite seeing what’s beyond the edge of the frame That’s why we were keen to always shoot through doorways — to give that sense of thresholds constantly being part of the fabric of the film You repeat things so you feel that you’re in this place somehow Bairéad: One of the things the film is pointing out is that children Once the mundane is experienced in the presence of a guardian or caregiver It’s like that Seamus Heaney poem where he talks about peeling potatoes with his mother… that he never felt closer to her How do you feel about the reception of your films which have both performed very well at the box office too Simón: It’s still surprising because it’s a very local story I was surprised how people engaged with the characters every country’s agricultural sector is in crisis No Irish-language film has ever performed at the box office with any real success and no Irish-language film has ever been distributed properly outside Ireland So it’s been completely remarkable that we’re selling around the world In Ireland it struck almost a personal note — it was almost like looking into a family album When people look at the characters in the film they know that child — there was a real connection to them The extended version of Anselm Chan’s ‘The Last Dance’ also picked up two awards EXCLUSIVE: Production scheduled to begin later this month in Utah Spanish filmmaker was in New York to collect honorary award The updating list includes titles’ sales agents and key deals The Barcelona producer’s credits include Carlos Marqués-Marcet’s They Will Be Dust Warner Bros./Legendary video game smash passed $720m at the global box office through April 20 Screen International is the essential resource for the international film industry access to the Screen International archive and supplements including Stars of Tomorrow and World of Locations Site powered by Webvision Cloud First published: September 3, 2024 12:46 PM 'A House On Fire', also known by its Catalan title 'Casa en flames', has become the most-watched Catalan-language film of the decade in Catalonia.  The movie, directed by Catalan Dani de la Orden, has been viewed by more than 270,000 people, according to ComScore data.  After ten weeks in cinemas, the film has surpassed the internationally acclaimed 'Alcarràs', which won the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2022. 'Casa en flames' is the latest film from Dani de la Orden, a dramatic comedy that explores the reunion of a middle-class Catalan family over a weekend on the Costa Brava.  Emma Vilarasau leads the cast, which also includes Enric Auquer, Clara Segura, Alberto San Juan, Maria Rodríguez-Soto and Macarena García.  In an interview with the Catalan News Agency (ACN), the director explained that the movie reflects on the idea of "loving badly" and the rejection of the people that we are closer to, such as partners or family. All rights reserved Support forthis publication has been provided through the National Endowment for the Arts Moving Image Source was developed with generous and visionary support from the Hazen Polsky Foundation Two films look at the hardships and realities of rural life A scene from Mikko Niskanen’s Eight Deadly Shots the 1972 epic of poverty and alcoholism in rural Finland by Mikko Niskanen earned its reputation long ago but never found the audience it deserves With a restoration that played at the New York Film Festival Eight Deadly Shots originated as a four-part series for Finnish television a convivial but struggling father of four children who survives on selling and working at whatever he can find Finland these days has been called the happiest country in the world a distinction that might need some clarification if you know the brooding films of Aki Kaurismaki (who admires Niskanen) In Niskanen’s series we’re looking at an earlier era or what seems like the end of an earlier era Think of it as Finland long before Nokia — long and the arrival of elements of the modern world to these hinterlands isn’t making it easier for people like Pasi Niskanen writes that the story is drawn from real life — it’s inspired by a mass shooting of four policemen in 1969 but this is the one that I saw and experienced having lived this particular life and having studied these matters.” Watching the director play the hardworking and tempestuous Pasi you see that this is a statement that he’s not making lightly “Booze was the root of all evil in our family,” the filmmaker adds Eight Deadly Shots shows us a family that’s being left behind as the traditional economy of its isolated world changes Niskanen’s film is epic in length but exact regarding the most minute details the discovery of the New York Film Festival The story here fits what has become a familiar picture of rural isolation and a hardscrabble life They produce their much-admired brew in the woods Pasi’s fatal flaw is that he shares and drinks a lot of his whiskey and he is a mean drunk who argues and fights We learn that alcohol brought an early death to his father She flees the house when Pasi’s had too much a soothing affection — until booze enters the picture There is more than serenity and quiet strength to Vaimo Dragging heavy cans of fresh milk through knee-deep snow while Pasi chops wood she is scolded by the smug driver of a new car who accuses her and her husband of producing too much milk from their cows “If these drops of milk from us small farmers are overproduction the almighty masters can drink their own piss,” she tells the man “We’re done with you.” More note would have been taken of Tarsala’s career if she had acted in a widely spoken language Given the title and the opening sequence  — the shooting of four policemen and their grand funeral (grand that is for rural Finland) — we can see where this story is going Structuring his film as an extended flashback The camera lingers on the objects in the spare interior of Pasi’s home on the grueling work of cutting trees in a thick snowfall which are so carefully presented that the filmmakers themselves might have violated some laws Finland and Finns have long struggled with alcohol The country passed its own Prohibition laws from 1929 to 1932 Illegal distilling in the countryside soared Eight Deadly Shots is not a film that celebrates the harmonies of rural life They are routinely short-changed and cheated by middlemen whom they despise Pasi and Reiska smirk as they cut every corner to make an extra buck Pasi’s young children fear what happens when their father drinks too much If there is a cinematic influence on Niskanen it would not seem to be his Swedish neighbor especially in close-ups of Pasi’s children and Tarsala as the patient Vaimo navigates the everyday challenges of marriage and motherhood Eight Deadly Shots’ touching scenes of family life are especially delicate You see another touch of Bresson (echoes of Au Hazard Balthazar) in the film’s treatment of animals and in one scene coaxes his horse to keep trying after the sledge the discouraged man reluctantly sells the horse to stingy buyers and pleads with them to go easy on the loyal aging animal There is a fatalism to the film’s many scenes of drinking and drunkenness almost always triggered by Pasi pouring free moonshine for his friends Eight Deadly Shots premiered on Finnish television in 1972 at a time when there was no commercial programming to compete with a tale about the toll of alcohol on a working-class family Yet state television was a somewhat protected environment where filmmakers could experiment as Rainer Werner Fassbinder showed in 1972-73 in Germany with his government-funded five-part series Eight Hours Don’t Make a Day about working class characters in family and factory settings And Eight Deadly Shots won its handful of fans at the time The farmer-turned-killer on whom it’s based praised the film from prison The film raised serious political questions 50 years ago and still straddles the political barricades Pasi’s plight is that of the indebted small farmer who is overtaxed and over-regulated — constant complaints from some in the Nordic countries or for any work — the kind of rural rebel with guns in his house who might have voted for socialists decades ago Those farmers tend to support the Right these days Pasi anticipates the abandoned characters who turn up in recent Finnish cinema men and women overwhelmed by life (and by booze) The Icelandic director Fridrik Thor Fridrikson explored some of the same territory more than three decades ago in 1987’s White Whales where two grizzled whalers on the wrong side of the zeitgeist vent their frustrations when they come ashore Farms and family in the present are the subject of Alcarràs a Catalan drama which also played at the New York film Festival where it was overshadowed by more star-powered offerings These are lands that you might have driven through around Barcelona on the way to or from the beach as are irrigation and quick harvesting and predation of the fragile tree trunks by rabbits which family members are constantly shooting (A film that could be accused of being anti-solar and anti-rabbit The family has already begrudgingly sold off some of its orchards for the installation of solar collectors with the prospect of having to unload more land to support what they have left a teenage son is growing marijuana among the peach trees The brood’s younger generation seems impervious growing up in an extended family living on ancestral land In this story of a farm that’s become a lagging business director Carla Simón gives us plenty of family rough and tumble amid the stress that comes with the encroachment of progress — for someone else but it feels like a documentary — as if the performers have forgotten the camera is there The film was a hit when it opened in Spain and it is the Spanish nominee for this year’s Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film he was a programmer for the Haifa International Film Festival in Israel He produced and co-wrote the documentary Portrait of Wally (2012) about the fight over a Nazi-looted painting found at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan Is there any animal cruelty in ‘Eight Deadly Shots’ Δdocument.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value" The Lady’s Dressing Room (1732) BY JONATHAN SWIFT Five hours (and who can do it less in?) By haughty Celia… but this Littlefield review has convinced me to make the purchase your comments reek of what is wrong in today's society and also if entitlement About Us Advertising/Underwriting Syndication Media Resources Editors and Contributors © 2025 The Arts Fuse. All Rights Reserved. Site by AuthorBytes Simón discusses her approach to reflecting the gender dynamics of rural Spain and more Spanish director Carla Simón has already proven herself a master of capturing childhood on screen Her masterful recreations of free play extend far beyond creating an on-set environment for her young actors to be natural Simón also creates space for the audience to slip back in that unstructured mindset of youthful imagination This sense of boundless possibility and limited understanding becomes a crucial emotional entry point to understand a world shaped by forces that can be felt but not necessarily seen. In Simón’s autobiographical debut feature, Summer 1993, this was the AIDS crisis that left her orphaned at the age of six. In her latest film, Alcarràs it’s the shift of using land in the titular Catalonian village from the family farming of peaches to the installation of solar energy panels The youngest children in the multigenerational Solé household are merely the first to experience the change as construction equipment clears a broken-down car in which they play Simón’s patiently observational camera gently reveals the symbiosis of the family unit This seismic development occurring across the country affects them all The grandfather (Josep Abad) grapples with the reneging of a handshake agreement that represented the unspoken deed for their land The middle-aged father (Jordi Pujol Dolcet) deals with the economic uncertainty The teenage son (Albert Bosch) thinks through what his future looks like with his previously inevitable path closed off The teenage daughter (Xènia Roset) just wants the distracting drama to stop so she can focus on her talent-show dance routine I spoke with Simón shortly prior to her the Berlinale Golden Bear-winning film’s stateside theatrical run Our conversation covered the way in which she draws naturalistic performances from adults and children alike her approach to reflecting the gender dynamics of rural Spain as well as her construction and calibration of the film’s poignant final scene Your experience working with children ranges from the tactical as a summer camp counselor to the intellectual as a student of child psychology What’s your method for directing them on set the most important thing is that they believe in what they are doing They [must] believe the relationships are somehow real so we spend enough time together for them to believe in this relationship There are play scenes and games in the story as well The rehearsing part of the process is very important is to spend a lot of time together with not only the children but also the adults and create a family to improvise moments that could have happened before the story of the film We create a shared memory between all the actors and the children and they go through things that feel part of the film Spending a lot of time together and creating this world we follow the script because I tell them what to do But I can give a little bit of room for improvisation for them which will always make sense in relationship to the world that I created before but do they have to understand them—especially if their characters don’t I don’t tend to speak a lot with them in terms of background and things like that What we do is go through moments that could have happened before the story This helps for them to kind of have lived some things that will make sense later When we were improvising moments with the adults about their losing their land I made a friend of mine come to play a lawyer and help them look for the papers They would peek at things in the way that a child would do This obviously helped with what happen later in the shooting and the telling the story How do you ensure you get what you need when shooting the script while also leaving room for them to feel free to explore a scene but then I also like when things look like they happen by chance in front of the cameras Maybe there are some specific things that they have to do here or there I always said that the camera adapts to them and more with a film like Alcarràs that has many points of view It was very important to always be very clear where the camera would be and with which character it would be the camera has to adapt to something that feels more natural Sometimes I have to just forget about my ideas and try to make it work for them in a more natural way With the children is where I give more room for that Just let them [go about their business] and then we’ll shoot Both your films concern the experience of childhood How do you determine where to incorporate their visual perspective it was [clearer] because it was told through the point of view of the girl There was a lot of voiceover and off-screen dialogue for the adults We never got lost because it was from her perspective all the time Where should we be for the audience to feel the character that I want to portray Because children don’t fully understand everything this point of view always brings more mystery to things It was a big challenge—this idea of portraying the perspective where the main character was the family We built the script with this idea of how the emotion of one character can affect [someone else] and so on It’s a domino effect that happens a lot when you have many people sharing the same roof This idea of passing the emotional baton was very important in terms of the camera There were scenes that were quite choreographed but we would rehearse together with the camera We even spent a whole week with the heads of department just talking about point of view to make sure of where the camera should be in each scene We had many options—we had many characters It took us a while to decide with whom each scene would be How did that revelation that these were not individual characters but a collective protagonist affect the way you conceived Alcarràs it was probably the most difficult part of the film because usually we follow one character When you spend an hour and a half or two hours with one character how do you get emotional with many characters if you spend just a little bit of time with each of them How do you balance staying true to your vision for the script with incorporating revelations from improvisations and spontaneous discoveries during the shoot I don’t let [my actors] learn their lines [at first] And when I felt that the family was really created It’s very important for me that they speak the way they would speak It’s finding my equilibrium between following the script and having some little moments where they can improvise and then I try to bring it up again when we shoot How has—or hasn’t—childhood changed since Summer 1993 Did making Alcarràs require you to learn anything new about what it means to be a kid today In terms of the childhood we portray in Alcarràs it’s quite close to the one in Summer 1993 because it’s also set in a rural area where kids can be quite free not so many kids now live in these kinds of houses Now there are just a few people who live in houses like that because when kids live in a village they don’t have this freedom that we portray there We knew that it was not the most typical thing but it still made a lot of sense to explain this world that’s kind of ending this will also end the fact that you have many generations sharing the same roof What they listen to now has nothing to do what I used to [listen to] The techno music that the teenage boy [played by Albert Bosch] listens to There were people in my village that used to listen to this kind of techno too But for Mariona [played by Xènia Roset] and the song she dances to I always think that children are children and teenagers are teenagers but there’s something in the essence that’s always the same How do you find the rhythm and pace of your films but not with the same intensity of narratives of accumulating plot points and life doesn’t have the rhythm of a film there’s always a game between the everyday life scenes and the scenes that move the plot forward These things that make the plot move forward are very small We’re talking about little details within relationships The end of Alcarràs is announced at the beginning but the important thing for me is how you make the journey with these people and how they deal with this crisis as a family It’s funny because when we were writing Alcarràs we always said that it was like an action film because there are many things happening at the same time with the whole family This is also what happens when you have many people in the same house You’ve talked about how in the region where the film takes place “women are not as empowered as I would like yet.” How do you weigh portraying the world as it is against creating a world as you might want it to be you find yourself portraying things that maybe aren’t as you would like It’s a place that’s really evolving slowly It’s amazing how different it is there than in Barcelona Even like the two sisters-in-law that we portray the film has been like a kind of liberation for them as real people It’s an escape from being the moms who work to take care of the house they took some time for themselves to do something that they wanted to do it is really different.” What I see now is that my cousin is in this feminist assembly in Alcarràs She’s teaching her dad to stay conscious of that “What are you talking about?” What I see is that the new generations are really moving forward That’s why it was important that Mariona danced to this song called “La Patrona (The Boss).” I love the juxtaposition of the film’s final two scenes because they embody the tension of the film itself: a rabble-rousing protest against agricultural farming followed immediately by the destruction of the land to make way for the solar panels It took us a little bit to find the ending We started to realize that the film should end with the pulling up of the trees more of a feeling that maybe they would continue doing this somewhere else we realized that they’re very pessimistic about the future of farming in families We decided to change it because it felt a little bit naïve but you feel that they probably won’t keep doing that that was an image that we knew for sure we should have we had them pulling up a little bit of a small field But then we realized it was stronger to have it at the end [and leave the audience with the] feeling of they are going to lose this land but the family will stick together was always there because it was a way to tell that this isn’t only this family’s story It’s something that’s happening to many other people in the area It’s a way to zoom out suddenly and realize that it’s a general thing I’m very happy that I fought for the scene because It’s what made the film more political than we thought because you have this [larger] perspective And the bulldozer is something we hear ominously before you show it which makes it significantly scarier as we wait for the big reveal The film starts with the same machine that takes out the car this idea of this threat being there all the time Something very magical happened [during shooting] in that the grandfather started crying this is really touching.” So it was very interesting to see that once we were in the editing room It felt like it was pushing the emotion too much We ended up going back to the previous idea and taking out the crying it’s a moment of acceptance that they have already understood what’s going to happen That’s why it was better if they didn’t cry because you have the tableau of the family observing the destruction of the land Was this shot something you wanted to compose in order to stand out from the rest of the film this image was important because it’s a way to tell that the family is going to remain together We tried to find a way to have it feel natural but also like a family photo they would just be one in front of the other but it was very helpful for me to just talk and then we take out my voice in post-production This helps to get [the actors] in the mood That’s something we do in the rehearsals a lot Marshall Shaffer is a New York-based film journalist and other commentary on film also appear regularly in Slashfilm document.getElementById("comment").setAttribute( "id" "a46040aa911c858d3bec00be3052cbe3" );document.getElementById("facec42938").setAttribute( "id" and website in this browser for the next time I comment Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here Where to Stream: MUBI (free for 30 days) Where to Stream: Paramount+ Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski has crafted the most vigorously energetic and vibrant films of the year Inspired by Bresson’s seminal classic Au Hasard Balthazar but taking the idea to formally dazzling new heights, EO tells the journey of a donkey traversing through Europe we witness the totality of the human (and animal) experience forcing the viewer to ponder their place in the world Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel ​​Few films have set out to tackle the idea of intimacy as literally as Ben Brewer’s 2023 Sundance standout A Folded Ocean The lead visual effects artist of Everything Everywhere All At Once Brewer’s bizarre and technically remarkable short watches two lovers as they fall and fuse into one another producing an enmeshed figure of flesh that is as endearing as it is frightening Where to Stream: Le Cinéma Club Where to Stream: VOD A House Made of Splinters (Simon Lereng Wilmont) Where to Stream: VOD small-scale scenario and exploring it with pressure cooker intensity Night Shyamalan the restraints to craft one of his most impressive feats of directing Further proving to be one of the most empathetic directors working on a studio level today he also packs in moments of fright as we glimpse apocalyptic disasters through the omnipresent form of a television broadcast grounding the unthinkable in a startling familiarity Where to Stream: VOD Where to Stream: Peacock Where to Stream: Hulu Where to Stream: AMC+, Shudder Where to Stream: VOD Where to Stream: VOD MUBI (free for 30 days) Daughters of the DustBless Their Little HeartsThis Transient LifeBeasts Clawing at StrawsFluid Frontiers Jordan Raup is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Film Stage and a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic. 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This year’s Berlinale International Film Festival saw a landmark achievement for Catalan cinema – for the first time ever, the winner of the top prize at one of the world’s most prestigious film fests was Catalan, Carla Simón’s ‘Alcarràs’.  It tells the story of the last fruit harvest that a family goes through on their farm where they have cultivated peaches for generations before they must leave the land after the owners decide to install solar panels.     Much of the film takes place at the family home surrounded by the fields where they work we see the family gradually come to grips with their new reality Director Carla Simón has found huge success in pouring her own heart and soul into her work.  In her acceptance speech in Berlin upon taking the top prize at one of the world’s most prestigious international film festivals she thanked her family who grew peaches in ‘Alcarràs’ for bringing her so close to this world she wouldn’t have been able to make this emotive film.  made me appreciate his legacy and I wondered if those trees would really be there forever is no," Simón said in an interview with the Catalan News Agency during the week of the Berlinale film fest believes that “Carla has a very personal style and a very personal way to approach reality to approach very intimate stories that are related to her own life Her directorial debut was even closer to her own personal experiences that ‘Alcarràs’ ‘Summer 1993’ (‘Estiu 1993’ in Catalan) told the story of a young child who had to move in with her uncle and cousin in the north Catalan countryside after her mother passes away from AIDS This tragedy is exactly what Carla Simón went through at the same age as the child in the movie did ‘Summer 1993’ was another huge hit at festivals around the world It was also chosen as the second-ever Catalan language film to be Spain’s entry to the Oscars for Best International Feature after Agustí Villalonga’s 2010 blockbuster ‘Pa Negre’.  Simón’s short documentary ‘Born Positive’ examines the stigma that three young people in London face after they were born HIV positive while her short fictional piece ‘Lipstick’ was the first time she explored the topic of children coming into contact with death for the first time in their lives.  “I think it’s a style of films that now are having a lot of acceptance in festivals films that talk about reality and our real lives and this is very very interesting,“ Judith Colell considers Another key aspect of ‘Alcarràs’ is the fact that the entire cast was non-professional found from around 9,000 auditions from people all local to the rural western Catalan area.  Using an amateur cast was an important aspect of the film because it added a layer of authenticity that would otherwise be impossible to recreate The film offers a true portrayal of the lives of people who live in the rural west because the cast almost plays versions of themselves Many have worked on farms and cultivated peaches for their entire lives.  underlined the importance of using local actors in an interview with Catalan News at the film’s premiere in Lleida She said that a film showing life in Alcarràs had to include their particular ways of speaking in the dialect local to the Lleida region as well as showing their own mannerisms and their own idiosyncrasies when it comes to farm life.  using amateur actors also provided challenges as Simón had to help the cast find their voices as actors told Catalan News that working with Simón was “easy” she helped them understand everything they had to know and he described her as “un crack” - brilliant.  explained that Simón helped her lower her acting levels to find a “calmness” while Jordi had to raise his energy for the pair to find the perfect “balance as a couple.” the cast spent a lot of time together on weekends and evenings in order to foster familial dynamics with one another They had to essentially become a new family for the big screen that they now all had second families – each other.  This process of building a family spirit also gave them a chance to rehearse for months something not commonly done in cinema for such a long time Despite its inability to weave its threads into a harrowing neorealist knot Alcarràs crafts a detailed portrait of an endangered lifestyle Traditional agricultural ways of life are in trouble around the world. In Spain, the global trend of corporate consolidation is dovetailing with the tepid neoliberal response to global warming, and as captured by Alcarràs, it’s leading to farmers losing their livelihood. Carla Simón’s follow-up to Summer 1993 features a cast of non-professional actors drawn from the rural area where the story takes place It’s one neorealist gesture in a film that might have benefited from adopting a few more—particularly that cinematic movement’s clarity of action While Alcarràs excels at building a convincing milieu it lacks the strong sense of tension and moral urgency that its story would seem to demand Simón coaxes strikingly naturalistic performances from her cast in particular the trio of young children whose characters serve as the story’s focal points in the film’s most engrossing scenes spend their time goofing around her father Quimet’s (Jordi Pujol Dolcet) peach orchard from making harvesting baskets into forts to pretending that the old car by the reservoir is a spaceship Simón begins Alcarràs in that space of childhood fantasy only to have it broken by the reality of the backhoe that arrives to clear the land and make way for a solar farm As is gradually revealed between the world-building moments that comprise much of the early stretches of the film has sold the land that Quimet’s family has been farming since the Spanish Civil War to speculators and clean-energy startups The artificially low price of produce has been driving many local landowners to do the same has joined forces with these powers that be helping to facilitate the installment of the solar panels Quimet and the multigenerational portion of the family that still works the land have committed themselves to a bigger harvest this year and defiantly join in local protests against farming conditions Rounding out the principal characters are Quimet’s wife Dolors (Anna Otín); their teenage children Mariona (Xènia Roset) and Roger (Albert Bosch); and the man’s father Each has a distinct presence: Rogelio is the kind and wistful grandfather while Dolors is the unflappable mother who attempts to keep everyone on stable ground as they cope with the stress of losing the farm But it’s the teens that have the most pronounced Nursing a rebellious streak that’s most clearly exemplified by his secret marijuana garden Roger alternates between duly performing his duties and sullenly rejecting them Mariona and her friends are choreographing a hip-hop-style dance for the local town festival which is situated as a kind of coming-of-age ritual Each of the film’s characters feels fully lived in as does the family dynamic that shapes them Dolcet in particular conveys a palpable sense of the physical and psychological effects of working the land for decades as well as Quimet’s disquiet over knowing that his family’s world is about to come to an abrupt end Mariona and Roger’s teen anguish never feels forced and Iris’s encounters with life-and-death matters in both play and reality constitute Alcarràs’s most affecting through line weave in and out of the story with scant momentum The feeling of stasis where there should be crisis—after all a family’s livelihood is at stake here—partially stems from cinematographer Daniela Cajías’s rather monotonous camerawork which often follows the characters tightly in medium close-up rarely giving us establishing views that would have provided more dynamism and a sense of space to the proceedings given the narrative’s ambulatory exploration of the characters’ different worlds the encroachment of big capital on the family’s way of life doesn’t possess the kind of accumulating force that would give the culmination of the various threads a deep emotional impact Alcarràs crafts a detailed portrait of a specific and endangered lifestyle but as an exposé of the potential losses that a business-centric green revolution is in the process of incurring it leaves one wondering whether a documentary would have harvested better material Pat Brown teaches Film Studies and American Studies in Germany His writing on film and media has appeared in various scholarly journals and critical anthologies "aba7fdcf9f9f158ff8255a95e32882aa" );document.getElementById("facec42938").setAttribute( "id" both acting awards and two of the three best film prizes were won by female film-makers Catalan-language drama Alcarràs won the Golden Bear at the Berlin film festival as the headline awards were dominated by women Two of the three best film prizes went to films from female directors Alcarràs, directed by Carla Simón, came away with the festival’s top prize: a drama set in the Catalan countryside, it follows the difficulties of a farming family after their landowner decides to replace their peach trees with solar panels. It is the second feature from Simon, after the well received Summer 1993 Separating them was South Korean director Hong Sang-soo whose The Novelist’s Film took the second place grand jury prize while best supporting performance went to Laura Basuki for her role in Indonesian drama Nana While the 2021 festival was entirely virtual, 2022’s staged in-person events while abiding by local pandemic restrictions. The most significant casualty was Isabelle Huppert, who was unable to appear to collect her honorary Golden Bear lifetime achievement award after testing positive for coronavirus shortly before the scheduled presentation Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time Alcarras is a farming community in the wild west of Catalonia The people speak a dialect of Catalan and grow stone fruit although low prices have made that harder of late Some farmers have grubbed up their trees to install banks of solar panels one of the non-professional actors in Alcarras.Credit: Lluís Tudela Quimet (Jordi Pujol Dolcet) refuses to consider this Then he receives a notice to quit the land His father admits they have no documentation to prove their right of occupation which is based on a handshake with the old landowner whose son now wants the land back Quimet’s father’s family protected this other family they face eviction if they will not agree to install the solar works There is a rich tradition of rural stories on film but they have become rarer in the modern era for various reasons They can be more expensive to film than urban stories and writers need to have grown up in these communities to understand the rich dramas under the surface complex stories of rural life are somehow boring Alcarras reminds us of what we’ve been missing authentic depiction of the drama within one extended family facing a kind of oblivion Quimet’s stubborn refusal to bend puts the whole family under pressure as they face their final harvest They can no longer afford the African workers who helped bring in the peaches and nectarines Other farmers dump truckloads of fruit in the city in protest – the market price covers only half the cost of production Alcarras is 36-year-old Catalan-born Carla Simon’s second feature and it is beyond impressive Simon spent part of her childhood near this area after her parents died when she was six Alcarras is based on the lives of her relatives and forms the middle part of an intended trilogy Simon has rare gifts of which the most important is compassion Her sense of the drama facing each member of the family She tells this story largely through the eyes of Iris (Ainet Jounou) who watches bewildered as her family falls apart Simon’s direction of children elevates her films Her connection to the child’s point of view is the source of authenticity It’s seductive to know we are watching someone’s lived experience – something real Being able to feel another person’s heartbeat is one of the reasons that film was invented Find out the next TV, streaming series and movies to add to your must-sees. Get The Watchlist delivered every Thursday ALCARRAS \\u2605\\u2605\\u2605\\u2605\\u00BD Quimet\\u2019s father\\u2019s family protected this other family Alcarras reminds us of what we\\u2019ve been missing Quimet\\u2019s stubborn refusal to bend puts the whole family under pressure as they face their final harvest Other farmers dump truckloads of fruit in the city in protest \\u2013 the market price covers only half the cost of production Alcarras is 36-year-old Catalan-born \\u2019s second feature and it is beyond impressive Simon\\u2019s direction of children elevates her films Her connection to the child\\u2019s point of view is the source of authenticity It\\u2019s seductive to know we are watching someone\\u2019s lived experience \\u2013 something real Being able to feel another person\\u2019s heartbeat is one of the reasons that film was invented streaming series and movies to add to your must-sees. A winner at last year’s Berlin Film Festival, Carla Simón’s second feature Alcarràs has been branded a masterpiece by the grand dame of Spanish cinema, Pedro Almodóvar but it has little to do with the latter’s sainted blend of melodrama and kitsch Simón’s film looks to the Italian neorealists and myths of the American west – notably The Grapes of Wrath – for its tale of a farming family under threat of losing their land which works quiet wonders with potentially unsexy material and has proved a surprise box-office hit in its home country peach farmer Quimet Solé (Jordi Pujol Dolcet) has devoted his life – and much of his physical health – to working the land inherited from his grandfather who bought the plot on a verbal agreement from the local landowner whose family he helped to hide during the civil war Puyol’s grandson is taking advantage of this non-legally binding arrangement to swindle the Solés out of their land which he intends to use to create a solar energy farm one that will serve to deepen cracks within the group But the Solés are not unique in their suffering and Simón takes pains to portray the penurious lot of the migrant workers who pick fruit on the farms as well as the smallholders whose livings are undercut by industrial farmers’ ability to grow in bulk and sell cheap it’s also one brimming with the joys of a bucolic upbringing Simón unfurling her story largely through the eyes of the family’s kids like the one where the family chuck each other in the swimming pool the existentially put-upon Quimet finally cracking a smile and others which achieve a quiet lyricism that ripple with longing for the past like the one where the Soles’ ageing patriarch sings old harvesting songs to his grandkids their words a subtle repudiation of the greed inherent in modern life These moments are lent poignancy by the fact that we know these people are living on borrowed time drawing subtle parallels between Spain’s feudal landowning past and the brute realities of its capitalist present her film is always alert to the possibilities of wonder Alcarràs is in UK cinemas now, and streams on MUBI from February 24 Feature Films Database Southern Mediterranean films database Scriptwriters European Film Schools Production Companies Distributors International Sales Submit a Film Industry Reports Co-Production Podcast Online Screenwriting Training Course Guided Course for Feature Film Writing Script Analysis Analysis of the potential of your series Cineuropa's Training Catalogue Film Festival Photographs Newsletter Photogalleries EUFCN Location Award Euro Film Fest 27 Times Cinema GoCritic! Advertise on Cineuropa Logos and Banners PRODUCTION / FUNDING Spain / Germany by Alfonso Rivera 20/08/2024 - The award-winning director of Summer 1993 and Alcarràs once again delves into her family history in her new feature which includes Tristán Ulloa and Janet Novás in the cast continues to explore family relations; this time exploring her paternal side Written by Simón herself and with clear personal connotations the plot follows Marina (Llúcia Garcia) who travels to the Galician city of Vigo to meet the family of her biological father Marina tries to reconstruct a coherent account of her father and the love story he had with her mother she fails to do this because they are all too ashamed of the couple's drug problems something that Marina reminds them of with her presence But the teenage love story she has with her cousin (Mitch) allows her to reimagine her parents and connect with them she invents a story that frees her from the stigma her family feels towards them and fulfils her desire to understand the past “I’m lucky to be part of a big family full of stories that have been my source of inspiration I find family relations fascinating because we don't choose them “Romería is not only the story of my family but of a whole generation that disappeared at the end of the last century touched by AIDS and of all the orphans left behind with no roots (Translated from Spanish by Vicky York) Please subscribe to our newsletter to receive more stories like this directly in your inbox 02/05/2025Production / Funding – Italy Shooting begins on Walter Fasano’s Nino, a portrait of scoring maestro Nino Rota 02/05/2025Production / Funding – Belgium Wallimage is backing Michaël R Roskam's Le Faux Soir 30/04/2025Production / Funding – Italy The final clapperboard slams on Il falsario, starring Pietro Castellitto 30/04/2025Production / Funding – UK/France/Germany Sally Potter’s Alma to star Pamela Anderson and Dakota Fanning 29/04/2025Production / Funding – Spain Claudia Pinto finishes filming Morir no siempre sale bien 29/04/2025Production / Funding – Latvia The National Film Centre of Latvia unveils the recipients of its latest round of funding Subscribe to our newsletter to receive the most important daily or weekly news on European cinema Cannes 2025 Marché du Film AFCI runs its second annual Global Film Commission Network Summit at Marché du Film Festivals / Awards Czech Republic Czech Republic’s Anifilm goes sci-fi Distribution / Releases / Exhibitors Europe European Arthouse Cinema Day set to return on 23 November Cannes 2025 Marché du Film Indie Sales presents a three-star line-up at Cannes HOFF 2025 The Shadow and U Are the Universe win at Estonia’s Haapsalu Horror and Fantasy Film Festival Crossing Europe 2025 Awards The New Year That Never Came and The Flats crowned at Crossing Europe Cannes 2025 Marché du Film Be For Films to sell Love Me Tender in Cannes Cannes 2025/Sponsored Latvia set to shine bright at Cannes, led by Sergei Loznitsa’s competition entry Two Prosecutors Las Palmas 2025 MECAS/Awards Manuel Muñoz Rivas and Joana Carro win awards at the eighth MECAS Cannes 2025 Marché du Film Playtime to present some high-impact and entrancing trump cards at Cannes Production / Funding Italy goEast 2025 Review: My Magical World Market TrendsFOCUSA busy spring festival season awaits the European film industry. Cineuropa will continue to keep its readers up to date with the latest news and market insights, covering the buzziest events, including Cannes, Kraków, Karlovy Vary, Tribeca, Hot Docs, Annecy, Brussels, Munich and many others Distribution, Exhibition and Streaming – 02/05/2025Slovak crime-thriller Černák becomes the highest-grossing film in domestic cinemasThe second film in the saga about a local mafia boss, directed by Jakub Króner, outgrossed its first part, which dominated Slovak cinemas last year Animation – 30/04/2025Mirko Goran Marijanac • Media sales executive, DeAPlaneta EntertainmentDuring our chat, the exec shared key insights from this year’s Cartoon Next and touched on the current climate for the animation sector Jaśmina Wójcik • Director of King Matt the First The Polish director discusses her approach to taking on a 1920s children’s literary classic in an unexpected way Želimir Žilnik • Director of Eighty Plus The Serbian director discusses his deep suspicion of ideologies in relation to his irresistibly charming latest feature, which follows a man whose life spans three political systems Paulina Jaroszewicz • Distribution and marketing manager, New Horizons Association Cineuropa sat down with the Polish distributor to discuss her company’s strategy as well as the connection between its distribution line-up and BNP Paribas New Horizons Festival’s programme Lorcan Finnegan • Director of The Surfer The Irish filmmaker discusses his mystery-thriller, how he created the character with Nicolas Cage and his approach to the use of colours in the film Privacy Policy The images used on this website have been provided by journalists and are believed to be free of rights if you are the owner of an image used on this website and believe that its use infringes on your copyright We will remove the image in question as soon as possible We have made reasonable efforts to ensure that all images used on this website are used legally and in accordance with copyright laws About us | Contact us | Logos and Banners Mission | Partners | Team | Donations | Terms and conditions Although it is set in a small Catalonian village, the themes of "Alcarràs" are universal. This absorbing drama, screening Oct. 6, 7, and 12 at the New York Film Festival, immerses viewers in the lives of a farming family struggling to get by Pinyol (Jacob Diarte), who owns the land, encourages Quimet to move to "farming" solar panels — to work less earn more and stay on the land — but Quimet resists digging in his heels and causing tensions within his own family How the other family members react to Quimet's stubbornness play out during the film Directed by Carla Simón, who cowrote the script with Arnau Vilaró, "Alcarràs" allows viewers to absorb each character and understand their lives, desires and frustrations. Roger is especially well drawn; he retaliates when Quimet discovers the secret crop of weed he is growing also get compelling storylines that help create a strong family portrait "Alcarràs" also addresses issues of fair pricing for farmers as Quimet is part of a collective that is staging a protest for farmers being squeezed out by big business Simón spoke with Salon about creating her new film "Alcarràs" presents a microcosmic look at a family and a community by allowing viewers to eavesdrop on their lives What inspired you to tell this particular story My two uncles cultivate peaches in Alcarràs "What would happen to the trees that were there forever when they disappeared?" This is not happening in my family because my uncles are still cultivating peaches but it is happening to other families; they have to abandon their farms cultivating agricultural in small family groups is no longer as sustainable as it used to be They have to leave their land and do something else Can you discuss why you told this story in a leisurely The structure of the film was a challenge because it is an ensemble piece We had to think about each character and their emotions and how the emotions of one character can affect someone else It was a difficult to show these different points of view Quimet is a toxic man who fails to consider the impact of imposing his will on everyone He seems to be stubbornly fighting an uphill battle believing he is in the right but in denial about reality It manifests itself in his back pain and his relationships with his family He is a fascinating character and not unsympathetic and right now we have all these narratives of empowered women who are feminists In these rural places they still don't know about feminism We wanted to give some hope through the character of Mariona the teenager who sees [Quimet] as the boss as the one to start thinking of breaking the patriarchal cycle but it is important to portray a man who can be tender and feel emotion I'm curious about how you created the narratives for the other family members I loved the young troublemaker Iris (Ainet Jounou) and her co-conspirators Can you discuss your approach to the narrative that lets viewers sink into the rhythm of these lives the most obvious choice was to tell the story from Quimet's point of view But I am not a 45-year-old man who is a farmer But I can talk about family relationships because I'm part of a big I like the idea of portraying what it is to be part of a big family in a cinematic way This is the case with the younger generation I care about how the children feel; the youngest ones have a mysterious view of everything because they don't understand the whole picture It was interesting to talk about generations and the relationship between the grandfather and grandchildren They are about to lose the land and this way of life is about to end It has consequences; this way of living with different generations in same house is also disappearing Can you talk about the different plotlines with the younger characters the idea is that they play in the place they usually play they spend the whole film looking for another place to play It's a metaphor for what's happening to the adults Mariona is the character who is closest to myself She is at this age where you start looking at the family and we see a lot of things through her eyes We understand the grandfather's feelings though her it was interesting for me to have a character who is a teenager who wants to be a farmer because of the lack of generational takeover and the mixed feeling Quimet has with his own future and his son's future Quimet wants his son to stop cultivating the land because it will be easier for him to study or do something else it makes him proud to see that his son has the same love he has for the land "Alcarràs" is very much a film about tradition versus modernization Is progress a good thing for these people who have been farming for generations They sometimes put solar panels in places where they can cultivate the land What observations do you have about the use of migrant workers A lot of people think that people hire migrant workers without papers you have to pay 10,000 Euros if the police catch you People come to these villages every summer and it's a problem The families don't have much communication with the workers It was interesting to have the little girl curious about them but the others don't communicate too much with them and spend a lot of time together every day Can you talk about the fair pricing issues for farmers Farmers cultivate the fruit without knowing how much they are going to be paid for each kilo they get paid less than what it costs to produce it it was a good year for those who could sell their fruit because the price was higher The folks whose fruit was wasted received money from insurance The worst harvest is when everyone has fruit It shouldn't be so difficult to regulate a little bit in that people are free to do what they want we need to end with some hope that they can still do that But in making the film and talking to the farmers we realize they have no hope and are pessimistic and we thought this way of life is really ending but this way of doing small family agriculture was ending It was going to be difficult to keep doing this it's a chance to start over and do something else Gary M. Kramer is a writer and film critic based in Philadelphia. Follow him on Twitter. Copyright © 2025 Salon.com, LLC. Reproduction of material from any Salon pages without written permission is strictly prohibited. SALON ® is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as a trademark of Salon.com, LLC. Associated Press articles: Copyright © 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. ACN | Barcelona 'Alcarràs,' arrives on audiovisual streaming platforms on Friday Carla Simón's second feature film can be seen on Prime Video which picked up the biggest award at the Berlinale International Film Festival this year has sold 365,000 tickets in cinemas across Spain this year taking in around €2.2 million at the box office ‘Alcarràs’ was also recently shown at the Sarajevo Film Festival and next week it arrives to theatres in Greece and soon at the New York Film Festival.  the editorial director and co-founder of streaming platform Filmin affirms that the success of the movie shows that the “epic of everyday life is more relevant to today’s viewers than the fake epic of computers” and special effects He also believes that the film arriving on platforms will be a great opportunity for viewers who have not yet seen it or for those who want to see it again "If there's one thing that 'Alcarràs' has achieved very well and when the journey ends you're another member," Ripoll says He also points out that director Carla Simón manages to make the viewer feel that they are watching a true story "The success of the film in cinemas and festivals shows us the way forward as an industry with medium-high budget films which are not thrillers or have special effects or are not epic films.”  according to data from Spain’s culture ministry announced last week the most watched Spanish film in Spain this year is 'Padre no hay más que uno 3' which alone accounts for almost 2 million of the 5 million cinema tickets sold in Spain 'Alcarràs' has seen cinema visits for a film in Catalan skyrocket in the first half of 2022 According to an analysis by the ACN based on the statistical yearbooks of Culture between 1997 and 2020 and Comscore data facilitated by the Institut Català d'Empreses Culturales (ICEC) for 2021 and 2022 never in at least the past 25 years have 5% of cinema tickets sold in a year been for films in Catalan The figure for the first five and a half months of 2022 stands at 6.7% thanks to Simón's award-winning film.  the momentum of the film is comparable to that of 'Pa Negre' ‘Alcarràs’ tells the story of the last fruit harvest that a family goes through on their farm before they must leave the land after the owners decide to install solar panels. It’s a tribute to rural life and made history as the first-ever Catalan film to take the biggest award at one of the most prestigious international film festivals in the world in Berlin in February 'Alcarràs' is Carla Simón's second film, after 'Estiu 1993' (Summer 1993) – in both productions, her personal story is obvious Have a listen to our Filling the Sink podcast in order to get an in-depth analysis of the movie its director and the current situation of Catalan cinema.  Carla Simón’s spellbinding second feature focuses on the rhythms of extended family life in rural Spain; in its own way and information about our latest magazine once a month occupy an abandoned car on the edge of their family farm As they chatter about travelling through outer space their fantasy is interrupted by a monster: a looming mechanical crane the children can only watch the car dangle above them – a surreal sight in this pastoral scene It’s the first upheaval of many for the Solé family in Alcarràs the Golden Bear-winning sophomore feature from director Carla Simón Simón mined her own biography to tell the tender tale of a young girl adopted by relatives after her mother’s death Though at a further remove from Simón’s life story Alcarràs retains some of the trademarks of her debut including the lush Catalan setting and the exquisitely detailed focus on the rhythms of family life not least the vividly captured playtimes of the younger family members The Solés are peach farmers who have occupied their land for generations on the basis of a handshake deal with the original owners and begins to make moves to evict the family just as picking season starts the Solés must contemplate an uncertain future tight-knit family includes grandfather Rogelio (Josep Abad) and his sister; patriarch Quimet (Jordi Pujol Dolcet); his wife Dolors (Anna Otin); and their three children Quimet’s siblings also weave in and out of the picture Despite the sprawling multigenerational cast each family member is given roughly equal attention as Simón deftly shifts focus from person to person In an ensemble drama with six prominent characters Simón’s accomplished yet unshowy direction sees her growing beyond the more limited confines of her first feature Alcarràs recalls the work of Koreeda Hirokazu in its attention to the minute details and rituals of family life Each scene unfolds largely at the eye level of whoever it’s focusing on with cinematographer Daniela Cajías’s patient naturalistic style bringing the performances to the fore looks out of windows and gazes along lengthy avenues of peach trees; the bucolic Catalan landscape is a sea of rich greens and oranges occasionally punctuated by the sight of a gleaming white solar-panel truck Adults discuss serious topics with their backs to the camera ceding prominence in the frame to the concerned faces of the children Alcarràs largely avoids facing its high-stakes premise head-on and instead is concerned with their attempts to care for and sometimes control each other as they react to the impending loss of their livelihood with their produce suddenly more precious than usual as money runs low the extended family still finds space for joy and nurturing The great-aunt recites fairytales; Rogelio helps his grandchildren wash peach stones Simón and writer Arnau Vilaró celebrate the vocation and heritage of these characters without regressing into conservatism and cheer on Mariona’s modern dance routine the next a subtext about the invasion of the modern into tradition swims in and out of view The local cooperative organises protests about the price of peaches and grumble about those who take up Pinyol’s offer of abandoning farming and installing and maintaining solar panels on their land The Solés weigh up this offer throughout the film Simón ventures into the political sphere without losing sight of the domestic with larger conflicts bringing smaller character moments into focus Rogelio’s repeated attempts to give the younger Pinyol produce from the farm is met with confusion Mariona and Roger put their own rebellious spin on this leaving dead rabbits outside the landlord’s door in the dead of night the outcome is unclear; Simón’s focus is on the shared experience between family in the face of adversity ► Alcarràs is in UK cinemas from 6 January and will be available to stream on MUBI from 24 February and the UK’s lead organisation for film and the moving image the Golden Bear-winning sophomore feature from director Carla Simón not least the vividly captured playtimes of the younger family members the Solés must contemplate an uncertain future Alcarràs recalls the work of Koreeda Hirokazu in its attention to the minute details and rituals of family life ceding prominence in the frame to the concerned faces of the children and cheer on Mariona’s modern dance routine the next the outcome is unclear; Simón’s focus is on the shared experience between family in the face of adversity ► Alcarràs is in UK cinemas from 6 January and will be available to stream on MUBI from 24 February Big agriculture and a renewable energy company (of all people) threaten the livelihood of a Catalonian peach farming family in Alcarràs Carla Simón’s latest sunny pastoral and her first since the 2017 debut Summer 1993 and like many of its characters it looks towards the past That idea––that time has a way of sometimes flattening out––feels central to Simón’s film and distinguishes it from similar works of social realism: Alcarràs appears simple but is deceptively far-reaching; enough at least to have impressed a Berlinale jury led by M Night Shyamalan (and including no less than Ryusuke Hamaguchi) who collectively awarded Simón the Golden Bear It isn’t difficult to imagine as nimble and precise a writer as Shyamalan appreciating the simplicity and quiet expansiveness of Simón’s film It centers on three generations of the family Solé (the Catalan for “sun,” if you hadn’t guessed) as they begin what might be their last harvest together Their existential threat looms all around with neighboring farms shutting up shop and being replaced by fields of solar panels the old and doting patriarch; a man unaware of how far the farming game with whom they seemingly once had a gentlemen’s agreement that the land was effectively theirs But the new generation (one of whom affects a white stetson—major red flag) are refusing to honor it (Rogelio’s bafflement and sadness is rooted in a story he tells about his grandfather saving a Pinyol during the Spanish Civil War.) more than one could claim to be the film’s protagonist at a cost to his mental and physical health helps to keep him grounded but his brother and sister-in-law threaten mutiny by listening to the energy company’s job offers grows weed behind his dad’s back and enjoys a drink while seeming no less dedicated to the family plot in spite of Qumet’s insistence that he focus on schoolwork only goes further into her shell with each of the family’s setbacks returns here as an aunt.) The three youngest run about without a care unaware that their little universe is closing in around them Performances are nuanced across the board and the characters are well rounded; each would be redundant outside the whole Simón is a wonderfully economical filmmaker in this sense with a keen ability to express whole swaths of time and personal history in small We only needed to see the other parents’ reaction when Frida grazed her knee in Summer 1993 to know exactly the kind of awful fate the girl’s mother had met; Simón brings that skill to bear again in Alcarràs using similarly succinct touches to express her characters’ world-views and inner lives A scene in which Rogelio takes Mariona to pick figs from a tree originally planted by the Pinyols especially stands out These small events come together to form a detailed portrait of the Solés—you begin knowing them One of the slimmest silver linings of the COVID era has been remembering what it felt like to deeply want to be in the places we are watching—a once-basic draw of cinema that has been diluted in the age of budget airlines the Solé farm fits that bill to the point you begin worrying for all the tangled lives it holds together sings a traditional Catalonian farming song and Rogelio joins in his memory suddenly jogged; and his family The scene is as sweet and sentimental as Simón’s film sometimes threatens to be but amongst that generational divide one can sense the sweep of history Rory O'Connor has been covering the European film festival circuit since 2012 Wide shots of a rustic reservoir appear on the screen The film cuts to medium shots of children playing in a car One girl pretends to drive fast down the road The children alert their aunt of the sighting This incident drives Alcarras’s rich plot surrounding place Carla Simón’s film Alcarras (2022) depicts a rural family in contemporary Catalonia Solé ancestors received a verbal land guarantee in lieu of a contract The current Pinyols decide to build solar panels Patriarch Quimet wishes to keep his family’s legacy alive The film won the Golden Bear at the 2022 Berlinale Festival the film discusses gender role ratification The film shows wide shots of the women picking fruit This contrasts with prior close-ups of bathing husbands and applying makeup Various age groups interact as both family members and business partners This presents a generational divide about labor Perhaps he wants Roger to have more economic opportunities Roger enjoys picking peaches and planting crops he rubs his temples as Mariona explains facts Mariona creates space for herself in the male-dominated farm she teaches other routines to Iris and other children Mariona became a source of artistic education and admiration Viewers see the orchards as sources of joy Mariona playfully chases Roger through the fields A wide shot depicts them jumping into a rustic pool The grandfather smiles and sits in a chair on land viewers see the orchard as a business outlet Iris and her young brothers think of the harvest pallet as a den They attempt to make the floor peach-colored the children throw lettuce and gleefully run The adults gently teach their children to respect the family business Roger places shipping stickers onto packages The operation shows the fruit business’s success beyond local towns the scene echoes Quimet’s earlier declaration: “it’s still mine until the harvest is over.” The adults drink wine through bottles with small holes An older gentleman brings out a spicy sausage dish called llonganissa the family remains hardworking and hopeful I enjoyed learning about the family’s cuisine and culture We are a collective of creative tastemakers made up of fashion Terms Of Use Privacy Policy Meet The Team © Copyright - The Knockturnal | Developed by CI Design + Media