Spanish film “Alcarràs” wins Golden Bear in Berlin

The film “Alcarras”by Spanish director Carla Simón, who explores the divisions of a Catalan farming family facing expulsion from their land, won the top prize at the Berlin Film Festival this Wednesday (16).

Carla Simón herself grew up on a peach farm in the town of Alcarràs, and her film was made using amateur actors from that region that she recruited and trained to play several generations of a family of smallholders.

Announcing the best film award, the festival’s first since the return to in-person screenings following the coronavirus break, Jury President M. Night Shyamalan praised the director’s ability to organize powerful performances from a cast that ranged from child actors to people in their 80s.

“This is a film about family relationships, their generational tensions, gender roles, and the importance of unity in times of crisis,” she wrote in her retraction of the film.

“This is a reflection on the need for adaptation, as we portray the last days of a universe that its inhabitants believed to be eternal”, according to Carla Simón.

During an emotional ceremony in which several winners dedicated prizes to friends who had died of Covid-19the award for best documentary went to “Myanmar Diaries”, a documentary shot by 10 anonymous filmmakers whose footage was smuggled and stitched into a portrait of life in Myanmar since last year’s coup.

Amid tensions and diplomacy centered on Russia’s intentions towards Ukraine, some awards reflected Berlin’s traditional role as a political festival, created in the 1950s in a divided city on the frontlines of the Cold War.

Source: CNN Brasil

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