Skip to main content
Alcarràs film image, director Carla Simón

Alcarràs

This event has passed

North American Premiere

Steeped in the warmth of summer and the sweetness of peaches, Alcarràs tells the tale of a family in Catalonia suddenly faced with eviction from the land they’ve farmed for generations. The Solé family lives by the rhythms of the harvest, following centuries-old traditions, as the threat of modernization encroaches ever closer. Immediate, joyous, and complex in its exploration of family dynamics, director Carla Simón’s naturalistic, immersive filmmaking tells a bittersweet tale of love and family in a last idyllic summer; scenes are bathed with golden sunshine and vibrate with life and exuberance. Winner of the Golden Bear for Best Film at the Berlin International Film Festival.

[Alcarràs] is an elegy for a way of life that has been losing its grip since before the latest generation of the Solé family was born, and it pays tribute to that tradition with a plaintive grace that reaffirms cinema’s unique ability to return the past to the present, and surrender the present to the past.”—David Ehrlich, IndieWire

 

Golden Bear for Best Film, Berlin 2022

 

Media Partner

Director
Cast

Jordi Pujol Dolcet, Anna Otín, Xènia Roset, Albert Bosch, Ainet Jounou

Credits
Country of Origin

Spain/Italy

Year

2022

Language

In Catalan with English subtitles

Links
18+
120
Award Winners Drama Women Directors

Book Tickets

This event has passed.

Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre

KAKU KAKU SHIKA JIKA fka Blank Canvas: My So-Called Artist's Journey

Dir. Kazuaki Seki
126 min

Adapted from acclaimed manga artist Akiko Higashimura’s autobiographical manga is a funny and sharply observed coming-of-age story about the creative awakening of a master of manga.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

A Sad and Beautiful World

Dir. Cyril Aris
110 min

This Lebanese love story chronicles the romance between a level-headed businesswoman and a romantic restauranteur across several decades in wartorn Beirut. It's funny, charming, melancholy and you'll feel it all.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Blue Boy Trial

Dir. Kasho Iuzuka
106 min

Transgender filmmaker Kasho Iizuka revisits 1960s Japan and the sensational “Blue Boy Trial,” sparked by the arrest of a doctor performing sex reassignment surgeries. With trans actors in central roles, the film powerfully illuminates buried history, identity, dignity, and resilience.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Filipiñana

Dir. Rafael Manuel
100 min

A luxury golf course in the Philippines is the microcosm for Rafel Manuel's vastly assured feature debut, a striking composed comedy which mixes languid surrealism with pointed political satire.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Aruku - I Walk

Dir. Shiho Kataoka
105 min

This meditative documentary, captures the stories of four contemporary pilgrims on the Shikoku 88 Temple Pilgrimage as they follow in the footsteps of master Kūkai, the monk who shaped Japanese Buddhism. Each is burdened, in different ways, by exhaustion, solitude, or quiet disillusionment.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

How Dare You?

Dir. Mipo O
96 min

A bug-loving boy, a passionate classmate, and a troublemaker launch playful eco-protests against their town’s careless habits. As their missions escalate, they face real consequences in Director O’s witty, bittersweet Grand Jury Prize winner from the Toronto Japanese Film Festival.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Credits

Executive Producer

María Zamora, Giovanni Pompili

Producer

María Zamora, Stefan Schmitz, Tono Folguera, Sergi Moreno

Screenwriter

Carla Simón

Cinematography

Daniela Cajías

Editor

Ana Pfaff

Original Music

Andrea Koch

Art Director

Monica Bernuy

Director

Carla Simón headshot, Alcarràs director

Carla Simón

Carla Simón is a screenwriter and director raised in a small Catalan village. She studied audiovisual communication in Barcelona and in California, and was awarded a scholarship for a Master’s program at the London Film School. Summer 1993 (2017), her autobiographical debut, won the Best First Feature Award and the Generation Kplus Grand Prix at the Berlinale, along with three Goya awards, including Best New Director, and was selected to represent Spain at the 2018 Academy Awards. In 2018 at Cannes, Simón received the Kering Women in Motion Young Talent Award.

Filmography: Summer 1993 (2017)