Carla Simón: "We have to rethink the model. When movies are made with money, Spanish cinema travels abroad"

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• Critic The Berlinale surrenders to 'Alcarràs', the new and beautiful prodigy of Carla Simón, the director of 'Summer 1993'

• Berlinale Isaki Lacuesta and Carla Simón: the return of Spanish cinema to the international scene

Carla Simón (Barcelona, ​​1986) is happy.

She has more than enough reasons and the Golden Bear for her film

' is not the only one nor perhaps the most important of them all.

But that is another matter.

Now what matters is the not exactly pretty golden statuette that since about 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday evening in Berlin she rightfully belongs to him.

"Everything has happened too fast. I haven't even had time to get nervous. With this festival format where everything is compressed, as I got up I spent the whole day with the interviews for the international press. At some point we have been called of the organization to tell us that it

But nothing more", he remembers, takes a second and continues: "Just before arriving at the Berlinale Palast, my producer

asked me if I had thought about what I was going to say if I went up to the podium.

And not.

As the awards went by, she was making me slightly nervous.

And I remember that when they read the award for best director as the first to describe the film, I was convinced that they were talking about '

'.

And no, it was Claire Denis that I adore.

And then another.

And other.

Now only the Golden Bear was left and I was there.

No prize ". And she laughs. And she does it exactly as we imagine a bear would do before they gave him

That everything will go away.

Do you now feel the responsibility of being, now more than ever, the spearhead of a new generation? No.

I don't feel comfortable with that role.

Actually, we all go together.

was the first of many projects that was being developed.

For me, if someone is the spearhead of something, it is Mar Coll.

When I saw

I realized many things.

She did what many of us wanted to do.

For me it was a revelation: I saw that a young woman could make films here and in Catalan.

Carla Simón prefers to distance herself from the adjective historical that has quickly spread around her achievement.

It had been more than 30 years since anyone had achieved what she did.

And until now, which she also tells, they had all been gentlemen.

"Things are really changing. This past year, both the Palme d'Or and the Golden Lion and the Golden Shell, all have been women. It is something to celebrate. The disproportion between the number of directors and female directors is enormous, but I see change. I see, for example, the younger generations and they no longer ask for permits as perhaps we did. What is needed are role models, models and if I have to be one of them, I am delighted", he says, is silent and concludes: "We are making progress".

Adequately.

The history of

is known.

The director has a family there and knows him closely.

Contrary to

the starting point, while deeply personal, is not strictly autobiographical.

Her first film was a work of professional actors hand in hand and at the same time colliding with the gaze of a girl who, in her own way, was herself.

This time they are all natural actors, not exactly interpreters of himself, but almost.

The strategy is to make the truth emerge from the truth itself in a virtuous loop that is both totally invented and almost sickly true to reality.

"It is important to note that the family of

are not a real family.

Each actor is from his own family and from his own town.

But now and after the movies, we are already a family", he comments making good the comment of one of the protagonists in the press conference: "We were very few and in the end we were a lot". And so much.

It is cinema in favor of emotion, truth and, if necessary, cinema itself.

Against the famous algorithms perhaps?

"Yes, without a doubt," he nods.

"As I understand it, cinema is more than anything a search. You don't know what you're going to find until you get down to it. And to achieve it, formulas or previously learned schemes are not valid...

concludes.

Be that as it may, and to scare away old vices,

is an atypical production, one would say unique, both in its artistic approach and in the other: the most puerile, the economic one.

It is Spanish production, but it is also Italian.

"This has helped us work with a larger budget. We have to rethink the model and scheme that associates auteur cinema with the heroic. It's important to make the film you want to make, not the one that circumstances leave you with. I think it's interesting that Isaki's film and mine have been here. Both have had a slightly larger budget and... It has been shown that when films are made with money, Spanish auteur cinema travels", he explains with the same clarity that wheel.

Without complexes, with high eyes.

Isn't that a bit of a populist wink about dedicating the film to farmers? Maybe a little [laughs].

But the truth is that it is important that the people of the countryside feel represented, but not in any way, but represented with dignity.

It is clear.

Clara Simón and her Golden Bear.

The residents of the Lleida town of Alcarrás celebrate the Golden Bear of the Berlinale.Ramón GabrielEFE

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