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

Farruquito: a Flamenco Dynasty

Dir. Santi Aguado, Reuben Atlas
90 min

Legendary flamenco dancer Farruquito struggles to reconcile his past with his family legacy. Revelling in the artistry of Romani music and dance, Farruquito: A Flamenco Dynasty explores family dynamics and the pursuit of greatness.

International Village 10 International Village 9 International Village 8

Linka Linka

Dir. Kangdrun
100 min

Kangdrun's feature debut depicts a twentysomething filmmaker coming to grips with a shameful act she committed in childhood. Moving between past and present, with each main character played by two actors, this is a provocative and challenging work.

International Village 8 The Cinematheque

Once Upon a Time in Harlem

Dir. William Greaves, David Greaves
100 min

Once Upon a Time in Harlem splices together footage shot by William Greaves in 1972 of a group of Harlem Renaissance luminaries in conversation at Duke Ellington’s townhouse. The film is a living archive of memory, disagreement, style, and Black genius.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema The Rio Theatre Fifth Avenue Cinema - 19+ only
La Gradiva
La Gradiva film image; man standing next to a large marble statue

La Gradiva

Dir. Marine Atlan
145 min

Winner of the Grand Prize at Cannes’ Critics’ Week, Marine Atlan's feature debut follows a class of French high-school students on a trip to Naples. While learning about the ruins of Pompeii by day, a different kind of education takes place at night.

Image: © Films du poisson, Bibi Film TV, Arte France Cinema

International Village 9 VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema Alliance Francaise Lindsay Family Stage at Granville Island

Fugs Film!

Dir. Chuck Smith
84 min

Originating as a group of New York beatniks, The Fugs' taboo-embracing contempt for social norms made them one of the strangest bands of the 1960s. Fugs Film! is a raucous, irreverent celebration of rebellion, poetry, and counterculture legacy.

Fifth Avenue Cinema - 19+ only The Cinematheque

Whispers in May

Dir. Dongnan Chen
95 min

Whispers in May follows Qihuo and her friends in China’s Liangshan Mountains as childhood gives way to womanhood. It blends close observation and scenes of the girls' search with animated fragments of Yi oral myth to create a hypnotic coming-of-age film.

International Village 10 SFU Woodwards

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)