“I would like to dedicate this Golden Bear to the farming families that farm the land every day, so that these fruits reach our plates. Because their way of doing agriculture, which is respectful of the land, today is probably an act of resistance,” proudly said the film director Carla Simón from the stage of the gala of the Germany's 2022 Berlinale. “This award is for the people who cultivate the land.”

The young Catalan won the Golden Bear in Berlin last night and achieved a milestone: she became the first Spanish director to win a major film festival. Simón won the award presenting a story attached to her family, her roots and her land. That essence emerges in the film's trailer, where an extended family appears picking fruits on their land on a hot Summer day.

The family see their livelihood threatened when distribution trucks from a large supermarket chain appear on the road. It is a sign, threatening an imminent expulsion from their land.

Simón's speech was a tribute to the work of farmers, who with passion and sweat maintain traditional farming methods to obtain quality products. Her film narrates stories of normal and real people, workers of the land of the Segrià region.

The Berlinale award has marked the filmmaker's career. With her debut film, Verano 1993, she won the award for Best Film. On Feb. 16, she won the highest honor with Alcarràs, which will be screened in Spanish cinemas next Spring.

The film is inspired by the history of her maternal family: artisanal fruit pickers whose business is on the verge of disappearing due to falling prices.

"I felt a very strong desire to portray a world that is ending, the one that lives by collecting peaches," she explained after winning the award.

The main characters speak in the closed Catalan accent of inland towns, which gives authenticity and realism to the story. It's a production she has treated with the utmost care and to which she dedicated six years of work. Film critic Sergi Sánchez from Fotogramas, commented that Alcarràs requires "a full command of the writing, the camera and the editing so that each character has his own voice,” despite its apparent simplicity.

The title refers to the town where her family lives close to the city of Lleida, popular for growing fruit trees. The filmmaker was hit home in her speech: "Given the current times, farmers are convincing their children not to continue with the fruit, because they buy it at a price lower than its cost."

All the main characters are people living in the region where the story takes place, whose filming was stopped due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was finally shot in the Summer of 2021.

Caught up in the emotion of the moment, Simón confessed that “I am not aware of having made history. Is very crazy. Well, I like the movie, although I still don't know why.” She was also eternally grateful to her uncles: “without them, I wouldn't have been able to do Alcarràs.”