Reykjavík, 10 December The European Film Awards gala saw Spanish director Carla Simón include Reykjavik in her round trip from Barcelona to New York and London, in full promotion towards the Oscars of ‘Alcarrás’, the film awarded by the Golden Bear of the last Berlinale.
“At least we’re getting closer to our time slot,” said Simón (Barcelona, 1986), in a meeting with Spanish media, ahead of tonight’s ceremony at the Harpa auditorium in the Icelandic capital. “Alcarrás” is nominated for the award for best film of the year and best screenplay.
The time difference with Spain in the freezing European country is one hour, against six in New York or eight in Los Angeles, two of the cities through which “Alcarrás” has passed these days – “many screenings, many talks , many international interviews…”, sums up the director.
Parallel to his campaign among representatives of the Hollywood Academy is London -home of the Bafta Awards-, plus the “whirlpool of sensations” that surrounds the Goya, with 11 nominations for “Alcarrás”.
“Eventually it turns out that we all have a city in our lives,” says the director. He keeps finding “lots of neighborhoods” wherever he travels—”suddenly you find people in the US telling you they grew up in a rural area, picking grapes…”, he says.
The reception of her film about the latest peach harvest of a farming family from Lleida is therefore “very similar”, both in the United States and in Germany, the country which catapulted her with the first prize at its international festival.
“Berlin is our talismanic city,” explains Simón, who remembers winning, before the Golden Bear in 2022, the prize for best first film at the Berlinale for “Estiu 1993” (Summer 1993), in 2017. A German woman became pregnant last February while traveling to Reykjavik with her family, her baby and her partner.
Simón doesn’t think his film has better options in Reykjavik due to the weight of the “German vote” – the European Film Academy’s (EFA) awards come from the vote of its 4,400 members. “The nice thing about European cinema is that we all co-produce each other. In the end, we all feel that the films are ours,” he says, as a reminder that his participation is Italian.
‘Alcarrás’ was nominated for Best Film alongside Ruben Östlund’s Swedish ‘Triangle of Sadness’, Lukas Dhont’s Franco-Belgian ‘Close’, Marie Kreuzer’s Austrian-German ‘Corsage’ and Danish-German’ Holy Spider” by Ali Abbasi.
That two of those five finalists are directed by women is a reason for “happiness” for Simón. It means that a presence which, a few years ago, was something almost exceptional, has been “normalised”.
Regardless of where the EFA award ultimately goes, for Simón going to Reykjavík is very important in his film career, also for the industry in the United States.
“Berlin is already a long way off. After that festival came Cannes, Venice… Being here means giving prominence to our film again,” he says.
The international projection of “Alcarrás” forces him to park his next project. A film which, he explains, will deviate somewhat from the realistic tone of his previous two, but which according to him should have, like these, the possibility of being worked on “at a slow pace”.
Simón is one of three names in Spanish cinema included in the EFA nominees. In the category of best comedy, “El buen patrón” by Fernando León de Aranoa competes, while actress Penélope Cruz is nominated for the best actress award for “Parallel Mothers” by Pedro Almodóvar.
Since its foundation in 1989, promoted by filmmakers such as the German Wim Wenders and the Swedish Ingmar Bergman, the EFA has followed the rule of decentralization. Its annual prizes are awarded every six months in Berlin, the seat of the Academy, while every other year it rotates to different European cities. EFE extension
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