The Berlinale awarded the film the Golden Bear on Wednesday Alcarrasby the Spanish filmmaker Carla Simón, a tender and profound portrait of a family of farmers jostled by modernity.
Quebecer Denis Côté, also in the running this year for the prestigious award with A summer like thisso will not have gotten their hands on it.
With the French Julia Ducournau, Palme d’Or at Cannes, and Audrey Diwan, Golden Lion at Venice, these are three young directors who have been rewarded in the last editions of major European festivals.
Carla Simón, 35, who has filmed with non-professional actors, dedicated her award “to the people who cultivate the land”, highlighting the importance of agriculture for society and their work to “fill our plates”.
The director had already received a first film award in Berlin for Summer 1993 (2017).
The president of the jury, the American director M Night Shyamalan, praised the performance of the actors who knew how to “show the tenderness and the fight of a family”, and to highlight “our dependence on the land”.
Ode to small Spanish farmers, Alcarras takes place over a summer in a corner of Catalonia bathed in sunshine.
The film follows the Solé family, who for three generations have cultivated hundreds of peach trees on the land of wealthy landowners.
But the latter want to uproot the trees to install solar panels there, and propose to the Solé to adapt to this new situation or to leave. The head of the family, Quimet, refuses to see his world disappear.
Around him is a whole fragile family balance, from children to the elderly, which threatens to collapse. All the actors are filmed with great tenderness.
The film is both delicate and profound on the issues of the forced modernization of the countryside or the conflict between ecology and ecological transition.
The rest of the Berlinale prize list is also dominated by women, with in particular a prize for the best director to the Frenchwoman Claire Denis for With love and determination and a “gender neutral” award for best performance to German-Turkish actress Meltem Kaptan.