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

The Blue Trail

Dir. Gabriel Mascaro
86 min

77-year-old Tereza makes a break for the Brazilian jungle in this trippy septuagenarian fantasy, the latest from Brazilian director Gabriel Mascaro is a quirky picaresque, lushly photographed and filled with mordant humour.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Calle Málaga

Dir. Maryam Touzani
116 min

Seventy-nine-year-old María Ángeles lives independently in Tangier's Spanish quarter. When her daughter pressures her into selling her apartment, she refuses to give in, finding in her old age a new resilience and an unexpected romantic connection.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
Streetwalker
Streetwalker film image; forlorn-looking man and woman sitting at a table

Streetwalker

Dir. Matilde Landeta
101 min

Middle class and married, Elena (Miroslava Stern) has been seduced by an unscrupulous swindler, who turns out to be the pimp of Maria (Elda Peralta), a prostitute and Elena's estranged sister. But are they really so different under the skin?

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Two Prosecutors

Dir. Sergei Loznitsa
119 min

In the midst of Stalin’s purges, a naïve prosecutor sets out to investigate a prisoner’s innocence, unaware of the labyrinthine bureaucracy awaiting him. A Kafkaesque procedural thriller about the pursuit of justice in the face of corruption.

Image: © SBS Productions

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
Salón México
Salón México film image; woman sitting next to a police officer on a staircase

Salón México

Dir. Emilio Fernandez
95 min

Cheated by her pimp, Mercedes recklessly steals his wallet and is only saved from a severe beating by the intervention of a kindly policeman. Hard-hitting social realism sits beside patriotic sentimentality and multiple red hot dance sequences.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema
The Kneeling Goddess
The Kneeling Goddess film image; young bride with a veil draped across her face

The Kneeling Goddess

Dir. Roberto Gavaldón
82 min

In which wealthy industrialist Arturo de Cordova purchases the titular nude sculpture of his lover (María Félix) as an anniversary gift for his innocent, adoring wife. Soon enough the wife is dead, though untangling just how and why is part of the fun.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
More info

Sold Out

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)