Screened as part of NZIFF 2022

Alcarràs 2022

Directed by Carla Simón

A Catalonian, peach-growing family face upheaval in this moving and nuanced reflection on identity, place and time by Carla Simón (Summer 1993 NZIFF 2017), awarded the Golden Bear at the Berlinale 2022.

Spain In Catalan with English subtitles
120 minutes DCP

Rent

Director

Producers

María Zamora, Stefan Schmitz, Tono Folguera, Sergi Moreno, Giovanni Pompili

Screenplay

Carla Simón
,
Arnau Vilaró

Cinematography

Daniela Cajías

Editor

Ana Pfaff

Production designer

Monica Bernuy

Costume designer

Anna Aguilà

Music

Andrea Koch

Cast

Jordi Pujol Dolcet (Quimet)
,
Anna Otín (Dolors)
,
Xènia Roset (Mariona)
,
Albert Bosch (Roger)
,
Ainet Jounou (Iris)
,
Josep Abad (Rogello)
,
Montse Oró (Nati)
,
Carles Cabós (Cisco)
,
Joel Rovira (Pere)
,
Isaac Rovira (Pau)
,
Berta Pipó (Glòria)
,
Elna Folguera (Teia)
,
Antònia Castells (Pepita)
,
Djibril Casse (Boubou)
,
Jacob Diarte (Joaquim Pinyol)

Festivals

Berlin, Sydney 2022

Awards

Best Film, Berlin International Film Festival 2022

Elsewhere

For generations, Quimet Solé’s family has spent every summer harvesting peaches in their orchard in Alcarràs, Catalonia. Their landlords, the wealthy Pinyol family, gifted them the land in gratitude for saving their lives during the Spanish Civil War – land which now provides a livelihood for the sprawling Solé clan. More importantly, their identity is rooted in this soil that has been nurtured from father to son.

But eviction looms: Quimet’s father Rogelio never got the land deeds in writing, for back then people kept their word. Now, the Pinyol heir, Joaquim, intends to install solar panels on the property. Fruit prices are so low as to make production unsustainable; solar farms are the future. Some members of the Solé family agree, further enraging Quimet, as siblings and spouses and rebellious teenage offspring clash. Oblivious to the rifts forming and the family’s peril, six-year-old Iris and her twin cousins continue to delight in the orchard’s groves, their imaginations transforming this playground into other worlds. Like the rest of the non-professional cast, they are superb, observed with an unsentimental, deeply empathetic eye in this transfixing ensemble piece with shades of Chekhov. — Sandra Reid