Carla Simón: "We can charge in two days the rise of auteur cinema"

Carla Simón (Barcelona, ​​1986) won the 2023 National Film Award yesterday at just 36 years old, and so did Penélope Cruz.

Oliver Thansan
Oliver Thansan
02 June 2023 Friday 05:00
5 Reads
Carla Simón: "We can charge in two days the rise of auteur cinema"

Carla Simón (Barcelona, ​​1986) won the 2023 National Film Award yesterday at just 36 years old, and so did Penélope Cruz. The jury of the award given by the Ministry of Culture and endowed with 30,000 euros wanted to recognize the director and screenwriter "for having positioned Spanish cinema on the international scene by obtaining the Golden Bear at the Film Festival of Berlin, one of the most prestigious on a global scale". The jury pointed out that Alcarràs "has been a milestone in the history of our cinema thanks to a film in which the naturalness and precision in the construction of stories and characters combines with intelligence and rigor realism and fiction with an up-to-date look at social problems", and that "Carla Simón represents a new generation of filmmakers who have managed in a very short time to develop a quality cinema committed to the medium itself and to society, reaching a global audience" . "Without a doubt - they conclude - he is one of the benchmarks of the great moment that Spanish cinema is experiencing. At the same time, he has been able to promote the opening of movie theaters at a complicated time after the covid pandemic”.

Simón admitted yesterday to La Vanguardia that she did not expect the award and that she is "very happy". He emphasized that in Spain "there is a new generation of filmmakers, with many women, looking for another cinema, connecting with the public in another way, a cinema that travels more, victories benefit everyone, it is a prize for all" .

In this sense, he assured that it is a collective phenomenon, that he feels that Spanish cinema is experiencing "a wave of filmmakers, something that happens from time to time, and I am very lucky to be making films at this particular moment". A generation of filmmakers who, he says, share many things: "From the outside it may seem like there's competition, but inside it's the other way around. With the people from Barcelona, ​​we read the scripts to each other, we see each other very often, we share the cinema". A cinema with which, he admitted, "I feel a commitment, I can't shoot anything, and I want to claim the slow cooking, to make the films on time, which sometimes means going against the grain, because they expect us to produce very quickly ".

And despite stressing that Spain is experiencing a wave of filmmakers, he also warned that at the same time we are experiencing "a very delicate moment for auteur cinema, very fragile, with everything that happens in the political sphere we can load it in two days if this effervescent moment is not supported, it can die the day after tomorrow”. "The potential will depend on how we take care of it. We often don't trust enough in the power of culture, of cinema. To export ourselves, but also to make us think and to understand things inside too", he concluded.