Why You Should Watch Alcarràs (with writer-director Carla Simón)

11 Mar

In Golden Bear-winning drama Alcarràs, the Solé family, peach farmers in the titular region of Spain, have until the end of summer before they will be removed from their land.

Joining me for this conversation is the film’s director, Carla Simón. Her first film, Summer 1993, was an autobiographical story from her childhood; in our chat here, she discusses broadening her scope, working with actors and crew to create a naturalistic style, and some surprising inspirations. The film is now out in UK cinemas and will soon be available internationally on MUBI.

00:00:01:11 - 00:00:38:10
Will
Hi. I'm Will Webb. And this is why you should watch. This episode of the podcast is a little different as instead of talking about an inspiration, we're talking about the director's own work. In this episode, I'm joined by Carla Simon, a writer-director whose second film Alcarras tells the story of the Solo family, peach farmers who are being evicted from their land in the titular area of Spain.

00:00:38:21 - 00:01:00:06
Will
Alcarras won the Golden Bear at Berlinale and is now in UK cinemas before releasing internationally on movie later in the year. And just a note, this conversation was recorded for Zoom. So apologies for any quality issues. Hi Carla, how you doing?

00:01:00:15 - 00:01:01:15
Carla
Good, thank you.

00:01:02:08 - 00:01:23:20
Will
So I'm hoping that everyone listening has already seen Summer 1993. And if they haven't, it's currently on MUBI in the UK, so I highly recommend they go and see it. But I wanted to start off by talking about how that's kind of different to this film. Summer 93 has a very specific autobiographical feel to it. It essentially tells your childhood story right in a fictionalised way.

00:01:23:20 - 00:01:32:19
Will
And I know that Alcarras draws on some of your family experience but isn't so autobiographical. So I wonder if we could start off by talking about that kind of transition of work.

00:01:33:03 - 00:02:07:24
Carla
Yes. I mean, it's so close to me and to my family and carers, but it's not like the real Alcarras mainly because the plot is is fiction. But the truth of it is that my uncles live in Alcarras, a small village, and this is like my mum's family business. So I didn't grow up. I grew up in the village that is portrayed in Summer 1993, but I used to go and still go very often to Alcarras for Christmas and summer holidays.

00:02:08:09 - 00:02:36:14
Carla
So just to spend time with my family. So it's a place that still for me, it was very important to investigate properly, to to be able to talk from the inside of this family. But but it was some somehow close to me and the plot, the political game when I when my father died and because it was the first time that I saw what would happen if one day these trees, you know, that they could be made.

00:02:37:17 - 00:02:55:08
Carla
And there's a space that we all share as a family. These appear now because when you have a very new family, it makes you think, well, this kind of thing. And then and then even if my family still could be repeated, then I hope they will be for a long time because my cousin wants to do to keep here in the land.

00:02:55:08 - 00:03:17:01
Carla
And I realised that this was something that was happening to many families that they have delayed the land because it's no longer sustainable nor as big as it used to be before. Because food, just to give a lot of money to the area, but now because the prices are changing all the time, it's important to live out of it now.

00:03:17:13 - 00:03:30:09
Carla
So yeah, so the plot came more, but yeah, it's in this thing about my grandfather and then also talking a lot to my, my uncle and learning about what was happening in the area.

00:03:30:19 - 00:03:46:01
Will
So I wonder, is there like an author avatar for you in in Alcarras? I know there's like I think it's one of the aunts, right? One of the three siblings comes from Barcelona, I think, to to the farm regularly. So is that kind of closer to you than the other characters?

00:03:46:14 - 00:04:20:01
Carla
Well, this one would be closer to my mum because she left the village when she was 18 with my dad and they and then they went to live in this other village that it's portrayed in summer 1993. And and she goes there just from time to time. And it's funny because this character is portrayed by my sister, who obviously knows my mom and like he's a professional actor, so she's the only professional actors in the family casting.

00:04:20:01 - 00:04:53:03
Carla
And I would say that if these guys that that I relate to, it would be mature enough with the teenager again because, you know, she's in this age where she starts discovering the other world, knowing and understanding that adult also make mistakes and and fight each other and this kind of things. And so I remember very well when I was like 12, 13, 14, that suddenly yeah, the perspective of the family for me tend to load.

00:04:53:03 - 00:05:08:15
Carla
Then I had this like observational attitude to know that actually I relate to my, my desire to make films that way and also so yeah, so I like this guide because I feel I could be behave.

00:05:09:14 - 00:05:27:11
Will
It's funny, I watched the film with my family over Christmas and it was interesting to see we would talk about it as an ensemble film, but then like, is there a main character or is there someone who you follow more who the audience kind of relates to? And I think it probably is Marianna Like for me, for us it was anyway.

00:05:27:11 - 00:05:48:14
Will
And I wonder if that's because of everyone. I think she gets the clearest emotional kind of journey in the film, that wonderful bit with the dance that she doesn't do at the end, you know, like, yeah, so much about it. It sort of ambition in that context. And I got to say, like, I think for me the, the big thing I like about your work is the, is the, the family story kind of focus.

00:05:48:18 - 00:06:08:16
Will
And I have a really big family. I have a kind of I have two sets of family. So my parents are divorced and both sides of the family are massive. And so it's it's great to see stuff like this, this moment of family bliss in Alcatraz, where they eat snails, I think. And yeah. Have a pool party. That's kind of.

00:06:08:16 - 00:06:33:05
Will
Yeah, yeah. Very, very relatable. They're like all the eating and shouting at the table is very much a family thing to do. Yeah, yeah. And that's why, you know, I'm kind of interested in that. You have quite a lot of stuff that feels universal in those films, but also plenty of very specific stuff. And there's one thing that I was wondering or rewatching about not having much context on, which is about the Spanish Civil War background that comes up in Alcatraz.

00:06:33:23 - 00:06:42:16
Will
And I wonder if you could speak on that. I particularly interested in as a song that recurs throughout the film, and I was wondering if that's related to that era. Is that specific to that?

00:06:42:24 - 00:06:49:12
Carla
The song that the grandfather sings and then the. Yeah, no, it's older than the Civil War.

00:06:49:19 - 00:06:50:02
Will
Okay.

00:06:50:04 - 00:07:21:09
Carla
Yeah, it's actually it's funny because it was very hard to find if we wanted to, to find a song from the area, which was complicated because not many songs go from generation to generation have been kind of slow recorded. So when we ask them, there was not like, like a big consensus about which song we should put not so we ended up finding this one that was it was recorded recently only because the original was released.

00:07:21:19 - 00:08:00:01
Carla
So it was only in the church, but then it kind of transformed to something else and became mega-popular. So, but we liked this song because it was an easy to sing and at the same time it doesn't have lyrics because it's this kind of lead that you make up while you're singing. Okay? So we end up like building the leaks through another song, which is called The Songs of Harvesting, Harvesting, not so songs that they used to do, thinking well, being the hope and and the song is very difficult to sing.

00:08:00:01 - 00:08:27:06
Carla
So that's why we kind of mixed both. And in there many recorded lyrics for this one. Most though at the end it was a mix of both, but it's not like it didn't like The Beast, but it feels like this kind of so many different. Yeah, and the thing about the Civil War. Yeah, for us it was very important because you know, in the in Spain we haven't quite well the song cycle memory.

00:08:27:07 - 00:08:48:18
Carla
No. And the end is still the Civil War. There are some in some places that are still female and still present. And this and calculating in the border between Catalonia and that is one which means that there were a lot of bad things. And you can still you know, you go around in the landscape and you can still find bunkers where they that they used in the Civil War.

00:08:48:18 - 00:09:12:13
Carla
And so to be present in the landscape, immersing in the memory of the families and and because the ownership of the land has always been something that it's a problem, you know, like it's never a good fix. Not so that's where it makes sense to kind of, you know, recall something that, again, that happened during the Civil War that people invade.

00:09:12:13 - 00:09:21:15
Carla
And then at some point this has to end because until when you have to kind of invade this kind of a context that we're the war now.

00:09:21:18 - 00:09:38:11
Will
When I watch this film, I was struck by there's this kind of like free things going on. There's this political story about like the specific thing to do with the peach farmers. And then there's a subtext about in general, modernity and tradition, like in the way in which the young people are trying to work out where they're going to be like, are they going to be farmers?

00:09:38:11 - 00:09:57:03
Will
Are they going to go out and do other stuff? And they have a complex relationship with their family for that. And then there's just this emotional story underneath about family. And I liked how they all kind of into motivated each other. I guess I would say like I was struck the. Is it Roger Rodger? Yeah. He's the he's the son.

00:09:57:03 - 00:10:14:15
Will
And cultivating his own weed on the farm is a very modern thing for him to do. And yet it is also a traditional thing. He's the one who grows the vegetables on the farm as well. Right? He grows the little like allotments. And I love that. That's kind of him trying to find his own path to that tradition via modernity.

00:10:14:15 - 00:10:16:16
Will
Yeah. Yeah. Some interesting stuff in that.

00:10:17:02 - 00:10:50:20
Carla
No, but it's funny that you say this like three lines, but for me, there's always a I have this theory that it's made for some when I to that you need to make films not that kind of go together and then you balance them. And in this case it was obviously the land one of the themes and then the family guy, you know, and then in the case of someone need the the beef of the girl and the the process of adoption and adaptation in this meal.

00:10:50:20 - 00:11:35:22
Carla
How not a thing was also like the family somehow that that was newly created not so so yeah so it was a way to kind of yeah and I always feel like what's more important not that it's like the big plot is the land and it has to kind of keep going. But for me, I think a lot of attention to so many dynamics because this with a lot, of course, you know so it's finding this equilibrium not with you are saying about the the women that this is that was very funny because when we show the film in India or well Paris, when they saw the film, the cornfield, they were really laughing because

00:11:35:22 - 00:11:59:22
Carla
they knew that that would was in say no and because they all everyone the plan might want to trees in a cornfield. So this is something that that they've been doing for a long time now there's something to this because because Polish the police have drones so they know where it is. Yeah. Okay. It's getting more complicated now.

00:12:00:13 - 00:12:35:19
Carla
But in any case, for me, it was interesting that Brazil was suggesting like like, yeah, you can even call it traditional or modern way of of growing vegetables because he from time to time, he talks about ecological and not and for me, this is the future. So if there is any hope on, you know, cultivate the land in a small family business or in this business or in a small in dinner and being respectful with the land with made ecological adequate or not.

00:12:36:02 - 00:12:58:10
Carla
And in Spain where to to to do this transition mainly because it takes them. So a family that wants to go from traditional agriculture to a ecological agriculture, it takes about four or five years, which is really hard to, you know, to sustain if yeah, of course, you know, for like these years to not have any income, it's really complicated.

00:12:58:20 - 00:13:21:06
Carla
But for me it's the future because it doesn't make sense that, you know, I mean, the climate change here, we still cultivate the land in like big companies that explore it. So that's why you have this aim to kind of not not use the the products. No, I don't know how you call it in English, but the the chemical.

00:13:21:06 - 00:13:27:03
Will
Like pesticides, that kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And of course you can't do that of weed because otherwise anyone ends up smoking it.

00:13:27:03 - 00:13:28:08
Carla
So yeah.

00:13:28:15 - 00:13:53:24
Will
Yeah. So I was thinking about what you were saying about having all the themes overlap and in summer night you free. One of my favourite recurring things is the the main character. Like her prayers, she prays privately and does these kind of like kid like she gives gifts to the the Mary Right and yeah like that that kind of level of these different themes coming together.

00:13:53:24 - 00:14:03:10
Will
But there's not much religion in Alcatraz. And I was wondering if that was that on your list originally, your list of interlocking themes, or did it fall.

00:14:03:10 - 00:14:28:08
Carla
Out when they the theme? No. Yeah, it's true that they are singing a church choir. They go, yes, because it is more like activity, like a social activity, you know, in the villages and cities now not and even young people too. So that's interesting. But it's true that even, you know, living this present no religion in the English Spain, even if people don't think so.

00:14:28:08 - 00:14:57:15
Carla
But yeah, yeah, it's it's not as bad as it used to be, although in these villages, many people, so old people still go to church and even young people are still baptised in the first. I don't know how you call it confirmation or. Yeah, yes exactly. These things not but yeah. And you know there's something funny India in India or that even on people, they say when you are them, do you believe in God?

00:14:57:15 - 00:15:25:00
Carla
And they are, like I said, nothing because there was a thing that happened many years ago about the piece of land that was for the church, and then they took it from the farmers. And this was an issue that they don't like. Yeah. I mean, yeah, they, they were like maybe only like Indians immediately, but it's true that it's, it could be more present.

00:15:25:00 - 00:15:28:14
Carla
But, but yeah, it's little, there's everything.

00:15:29:09 - 00:15:53:06
Will
Well it's one of my favourite things about films is that they have that ability, especially in observational dramas like yours, to kind of take you into a place that you otherwise wouldn't go to. And, and I've travelled for films much more than I've travelled in real life and I thought a fair amount of that. So yeah, it's nice to spend 2 hours sometimes in another place and even then like that the celebration they have at the end looked in some ways very similar to the harvest celebrations.

00:15:53:06 - 00:16:02:09
Will
You the traditional ones that still happen in England, even down to offering fireworks at each other, like teenagers throwing fireworks around and stuff, but still a very common sense.

00:16:02:09 - 00:16:02:17
Carla
Yes.

00:16:03:05 - 00:16:11:20
Will
And so thinking about observation, I was interested. I was watching some interviews with you. And you originally thought about being a journalist, is that right?

00:16:12:18 - 00:16:13:01
Carla
Yes.

00:16:13:18 - 00:16:15:20
Will
I did it in that. Yeah.

00:16:16:08 - 00:16:16:18
Carla
Yes.

00:16:16:20 - 00:16:22:02
Will
Because there's this there's this very observational kind of almost reporting character to a lot of your film. Yeah.

00:16:22:22 - 00:16:54:14
Carla
Yeah, yeah. That's true. I don't know. I never spoke of this connexion, but I wanted to be a journalist is basically because I wanted to travel when I was a teenager. This was my aim in life and I wanted to be a journalist of the National Geographic because that was like my my dream and then that. Yeah. And then I discovered film and I decided that that day I wanted to make do but it do your thing for me there'd be the this this like attachment to reality is important.

00:16:54:19 - 00:17:30:16
Carla
So I like films that look like life, no end and like I said, when things you feel that things happening in front of the camera like not even though there is no sentence in fiction, we know. But by the end with Ultra, the idea of poetry was something that we always had babies. And also we are doing a portrait of this place, which means that even sometimes as a filmmaker you would be taking some of the vision or like according to your taste, but then you are not going this way.

00:17:30:16 - 00:18:18:19
Carla
You are going the way that that has like basically given that so the place. And also when I think that, you know, I ended up putting some techno music in my film, I'm like, I never thought I would do that, but it makes sense for a year because this is what people listen there. Know that. Yeah. Or even like we, we thought a lot about how to portray men and women, not because nowadays it's like, okay, we need these stories about women, power and feminists and, you know, and they kind of discover themselves and and in this area, they do not know yet really the toxic masculinity is and and it's getting them a little

00:18:18:19 - 00:18:48:09
Carla
bit more than other places. So it was very important to show this and know even if it doesn't feel like a modern or contemporary time. Yeah. So so the idea of poetry was something that we tried to do to be very faithful to know and to. And that's why the investigation process was very important. Like with Adam now with the co-writer, we we lived for two families in the house, in the same house of my uncle that is surrounded by people.

00:18:48:20 - 00:19:12:07
Carla
And, and so we would be writing from there. And they we they would arrive at 6 a.m. and go to the house and we would go with them sometimes and speak to them and also to a mouse family, because they are with the family. And, you know, this this contact with our families and also with the people from the area when we did the casting was very, very important, too.

00:19:13:05 - 00:19:27:16
Carla
Yeah. To be able to do that, everything from the inside of the family, I was like really afraid of giving the feeling of someone from outside or with an outsider. Look. Yeah, in this place.

00:19:28:05 - 00:19:45:01
Will
And I think that comes across even in the camera language. One of the things that struck me about it was and I think it struck me, I mean, it's funny because I don't think the film is like a it doesn't hit you over the head at all. So I don't know why I keep thinking about being struck, struck by something, but the camera is almost always eye height.

00:19:45:06 - 00:20:08:07
Will
So even like from a directing point of view, I think it's a really difficult, complex film to make because you have these like eight or so main characters who are all different ages and physically different heights, and you manage the transition between those points of view really well. And I, I noticed it's like you see it really clearly in the opening sequence when the kids arrive while the adults are having a different conversation.

00:20:08:17 - 00:20:22:03
Will
And for about half of that scene, we don't see the adults faces. We watch them from behind, from from the eye of the kids. And then there's a transition to being at the adults height, and then the kids kind of run off and they go back, I think, with marijuana. And then you you kind of follow at her height.

00:20:23:05 - 00:20:43:23
Will
And it's a kind of testament to how powerful I like the level of the camera can be in communicating some of that stuff. But there's two moments that I noticed in particular where it goes off that I very dramatically see which are the opening and closing shots of the film to see the farm, basically. Yeah. And I wonder if you could talk a bit about that.

00:20:44:23 - 00:20:48:15
Will
How you develop that camera language, I guess with Daniella as the cinematographer.

00:20:49:08 - 00:21:09:20
Carla
Yeah. I mean, like I yes, yeah. Like I really now with this film In the sand now because coming from summer 1993, which is like one point of bill from the girls perspective, which means that the camera was going to be high level and we never got most of the way. So every time that we were like, okay, where should we be?

00:21:09:20 - 00:21:46:23
Carla
It was always like with, you know, and leaving out some things or like looking from hair to the things. And this was a way to do it. But at the same time, very simple. And us, it was really complex because we had many characters and obviously we, we wrote it thinking of that. And also the idea was that, you know, the whole family was like an only boy that most of the emotion unit because they were afraid of emotion, like how are people going to feel emotion if you just see a little bit of each of them?

00:21:46:23 - 00:22:06:05
Carla
Not so the idea was just, okay, because you have to do the journey with the whole family and how are they doing all of that look. And so basically we wrote it in this in these idea of one character, but of the emotion to the other, to the girl you say, like, I don't know, or something like that.

00:22:06:08 - 00:22:33:03
Carla
Yeah. Yeah. So that was the idea that the emotion goes from one to the other as except when you share the same rules with a family that you know, like someone gets lonely and then some of the people are and they don't even know why. So this is a very natural. So we worked a lot with people because for me it was very important to be very clear on where the camera would be in every scene because we had many options all the time.

00:22:33:03 - 00:22:55:03
Carla
So we really get lost in the shooting. You we spent a week we found the head of department just reading the script and going scene by scene and making sure that we were all on the same page on where the camera or with whom the camera would be in nine and also how this is going to end and how the next thing is going to start.

00:22:55:21 - 00:23:20:00
Carla
And then obviously what happened in the shooting is that we had like curse people and they were non-professional actors and and then we could go there with the knees and everything, but then things happened and then you have to adjust and adapt to them. And they were complicated. But for me, being like they learn where the camera should be for each scene was very important.

00:23:20:00 - 00:23:36:08
Carla
Not because it was the way to make sure that the emotional journey would go on. So they should we we were wishing not. And then obviously that in the editing room you end up like polishing and fixing some things that, you know, help you not to.

00:23:37:12 - 00:23:46:14
Will
I heard that you you had like a different ending at one point. Like, the family cried just while you were on set, and then you pulled it by the ending. What happened?

00:23:46:19 - 00:24:02:05
Carla
Yeah, yeah, well, happened with this because. Yeah, they see them with me. What. Worried about the emotion, but not just for the life of but also for the excess of, like, too much emotion.

00:24:02:10 - 00:24:05:09
Will
Yeah. You know, like, melodrama. You don't want to get into that. Yeah. No.

00:24:05:16 - 00:24:25:23
Carla
No, no, no. Yeah. So. So what would happen in the last thing is that, you know, they couldn't because we pull up the trees in another place that they had to pull up the trees. So we shot these in a place, you know, in another place. And then we put the game screen on the House floor then impossible to do to put it together.

00:24:26:12 - 00:24:59:04
Carla
So they were looking at something that was not happening and it was so hard for them to fill it. Yeah. Then I ended up doing this huge speech about him losing the land, and then we put a guy just driving the tractor just for the sound, and at the end they really got like into the mode. And then the grandfather started crying and this was like a kind of domino effect because like then the teenager boy to the teenager again, the little girl and the mom, the the the anti everyone was crying.

00:24:59:10 - 00:25:27:23
Carla
All the crew were crying as well because, you know, you see these but you end up going to and this was not written like that, but we filmed everything. And then I went home that day. And I mean, I'm sure we're going to edit because he was very mad. And when we got into the editing room and we played with this, this crying thing for me deleted too much, it felt like it was not playing with the with the way that the emotion was portrayed in the film.

00:25:28:06 - 00:25:53:01
Carla
So it was too pushy for the audience to cry. And I really don't like that. Like, I hate when families do this to me, you know? So, so that's why we decided to just sit back and go do the other invasion of it, because we had him, because they knew from the beginning. And so we just pulled the the little the moment where the grandfather did the emotional limbo that was.

00:25:53:10 - 00:26:02:08
Carla
No, yes. This this for me, something that is very important to play around and try out and and everything needs to be cushioned in that.

00:26:02:08 - 00:26:22:17
Will
But I guess for me it's like the emotional climax of the film happens a couple of scenes earlier when the dad cries after dropping that crate of peaches. And you know, you spend an hour and a bit with his family is these damn peaches, you know, so valuable and naturally taken by hand. And when he cries at you, focus on the kids.

00:26:22:17 - 00:26:47:18
Will
You focus on Mariana and Roger who are there. And I think it's it's almost like it's that's the moment when they actually understand kind of what's going on. Like that. They kind of connect with him. And so, like, I feel like by the time you get to that ending, the emotions happened like it. And as you said in this interview that I read like it's like they've already they've already come to terms with it and they're now just seeing what's going to happen.

00:26:47:21 - 00:26:49:01
Will
What's actually happening.

00:26:49:15 - 00:27:12:09
Carla
Yeah, you know, demand the character of the father and that he he has a private to doing the whole family not that way for me that this premise was interesting not that he gets the news about they have to leave the land at the beginning of the summer, but he has to do so. He cannot really say these news or deal with them.

00:27:12:18 - 00:27:30:04
Carla
So towards was the end of the summer is when he can actually accept that this is going to getting is getting to to an end but not so that's the way he cries at the end not being the time he just can only think of, but taking the pictures because the pictures is the food that you really to gain.

00:27:30:04 - 00:27:32:15
Carla
Right and getting the right time.

00:27:33:17 - 00:28:00:03
Will
And that's the money, I guess, too, right. There's the economic thing kind of lying underneath that. You mentioned about kind of switching stuff up from what you intended. And I found a quote from you, I'm not going to quote you to more, but I found a thing that you said, an interview. You said Cruz weren't used to directors admitting doubts that you found when you were working and you felt like it was like the women were bringing or you said like it would make it okay for men to do it too, which is nice.

00:28:00:20 - 00:28:14:19
Will
Yeah. And I was but you said it that allowed you to kind of go past what may be seems like the obvious choice and to do new things. And I wondered, I know that you did a lot of improv and rehearsal time and then didn't really improvise on set much that right.

00:28:15:11 - 00:28:15:21
Carla
Yeah.

00:28:16:02 - 00:28:24:16
Will
Okay. So I wonder if you could talk about your not just improvising with actors, but improvising with your crew as well because you developed the work together.

00:28:24:16 - 00:28:46:11
Carla
Yes. Yeah. For for me, it's very important that, you know, even even if they are actors on actors, they don't care. But the fact that we arrive in the shooting feeling that the relationship that they have to portray a real know and for that you have to spend time together and in this way, like a foot for the rehearsals.

00:28:46:11 - 00:29:24:22
Carla
I rented the house in the area and they would come very often to this house and we just played or improvised monologues. That could have happened before the three of us. And we. Yeah. And we, because I was reviewing my documents the other day and I realised they had come in with like 120 pages of rehearsal, which was crazy, but it was just a way to create like little moments that kind of build the relationships and also the background of the story and also some kind of memory that they could all share.

00:29:25:09 - 00:29:58:20
Carla
So in this document, I just prepare really here. So okay, so do they even know Roger and his father are going to come lesson not and here's the conflict or do they the little kids that are gonna build the cabin and then for some reason someone is going to kind of destroy it. And so there were things that they are in the in the in the film that we would start like trying out now and then also, as I said, the background.

00:29:58:24 - 00:30:19:20
Carla
So we worked a lot on the fact that they were going to lose the land and that they had like a gas court and that they had to go to court. And then I had my friend coming and playing as a lawyer and helping them to find papers. And then all the family was like trying to find papers.

00:30:19:20 - 00:30:46:20
Carla
And even the little girl, just when they she found a paper and then she got called because she played with the, you know, so these are things that good, you know, they just made them spend time together. And then also we did like normal things, like even going for a walk or cooking or eating pizza and watching a film, or in the case of like, you know, marijuana.

00:30:46:24 - 00:31:12:03
Carla
And the D.A. have these like really nice relationships. The one thing Maria and I went with Natalie and, you know, so this kind of things that we just had them to to get from nothing. And yeah, so this was with the actors. But what happens in is this. And then obviously at some point we read the script like after three months together and then we hit the themes of the film.

00:31:12:03 - 00:31:42:19
Carla
Not right. But then obviously you get to the shooting and then the many people in. And for them it was very shocking, shocking that we went from this like very close intimacy because at the beginning was just me and my camera. And then and then little by little, I introduced people by just people close to it. To me, not so like a code that came the last most of rehearsals or or the script or the opioids, you know, the, obviously the, the, the dress designer or not.

00:31:43:06 - 00:32:15:19
Carla
But they didn't know many people from the crew. So the first week was really hard for them because it was like with all these people nine and what they had been doing. So, so also the crew needed to learn these. And the thing about the, you know, the questioning or dubbing thing that I usually I like to kind of indicate is because, you know, the crews are so used to to making films where you don't know exactly what you want to happen in front of the camera.

00:32:15:24 - 00:32:56:18
Carla
Yeah. And I try like I try to make sure that words written is going to happen in front of the camera. But sometimes they some you have to be a little bit open because something more interesting than what what you wrote can happen too. And no, if you have created on these like step ups and you get there with people who really have feelings for other, you know, so, so yeah, the beginning I would get all these looks like the same day I go summer 1990 you know, you see, you know what you are reading and then little by little be pretty understood that these these was this kind of thing.

00:32:56:19 - 00:33:22:12
Carla
Now that we were working with people who who were there like for the first time with the all and then also ready to kind of either know and like do the same thing, but they also do something else and we had to be prepared to catch this. And this is the way for me to be in person that the camera learns to adapt to the actors and only to the actors that adapt to the camera.

00:33:22:21 - 00:33:46:15
Carla
Because if it's this way, then you are kind of breaking something that you're not making them change noise. So, you know, making them more rigid. And sometimes it happened because this happens to shooting like you have so many people, you have to take these and then suddenly you say, okay, you see them here or you do this, and then they just not working.

00:33:46:15 - 00:33:51:10
Carla
No. And this is when I think it's very important to react as they act in and fix it.

00:33:51:11 - 00:34:15:05
Will
Now, I think when I started, like reading about films was like the peak of having filmmakers who were very mannered. All of their stuff was very pre considered, very pre-planned, and this for sure a place for that. And obviously it depends what you're doing. Stunt work has to be preplanned, things like that. And yeah, but the more I, I've worked and I found that when I watch those films, they feel like there's, there's not enough room for me.

00:34:15:09 - 00:34:34:17
Will
There's not enough room for the viewer to sit there and kind of find the gaps and fill things in. And I was I find this on my favourite filmmakers, the people who leave out stuff to the other side of things. So I wanted to talk about your inspirations, actually, your filmmaking inspirations you mentioned I like I said, I watched these interviews.

00:34:35:22 - 00:34:58:24
Will
Claire Danny is a surprising to me. I'm kind of interested in that, I think is because I think about her as being I mean, there is a lot of improvisation in her work, but it's less realist in some ways than yourself. But I can certainly see it. And it's funny that you mentioned Alisa Olivier Rohrwacher, because happy as Lazaro has always kind of been in my head, it's like a sister film, Summer 93.

00:34:59:14 - 00:35:13:15
Will
I think it's partly that they came out within a year of each other in the UK and the key was really similar. There was that picture of the little girl in summer 93, kind of with all the greenery around her, and they had a similar sort of one for the zero two.

00:35:13:16 - 00:35:14:10
Carla
And it was sort of.

00:35:15:23 - 00:35:33:11
Will
I guess, the symbol. I mean, her previous film is feels like similar in some ways to outcasts, right? It's about social medicine. It's about like kids trying to manage their parents and things like that. And so when I watched across I what it reminded me of most was creator. Hirokazu you creator. I wonder if you've seen his stuff.

00:35:33:11 - 00:35:34:08
Will
Do you like his work?

00:35:34:08 - 00:36:12:12
Carla
Yes. Yes, yeah, I like him very much. Is. And he was with kids. Really went and like he is. Yeah. No, for me, the way that people reacted and the way he films them, it's very interesting and I love it. And I would I mean, for me, it's like, I don't know, maybe of influence, but but it's true, you know, like what we spend that I see his films and because of the themes that seem to be very close to it and and but yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah it is but also with the the wonder they I grew up in this kind of house now.

00:36:12:12 - 00:36:40:15
Carla
So for me it was, yeah, it was very kind of personal as we're not as thin and kind of with clothes. And I, I loved it so much, but I think that would maybe it's not if you see his films in my films, they have nothing to do but they something that she always said that for me to make sure that the lost the love he needs to feel for just not only here, but there's also the people that portray Scott Smile.

00:36:41:00 - 00:36:54:05
Carla
And I realised that I need that to you know, that I know when they film with characters even if they are doing things that that they're not good know or, or.

00:36:54:07 - 00:36:55:11
Will
Sometimes very not good.

00:36:56:03 - 00:37:26:08
Carla
Yes. The way she portrays them it's always with this kind of like very delicate, sensual, loving approach. Yeah. And totally with my films, they don't have the centre, but mainly because I'm talking about family and fiction. But, but for me, this love that you need to see it, you know. And she said that it was with actors that she needed the feeling of feeling lost somehow and also finding love.

00:37:26:09 - 00:37:51:15
Carla
Something that yeah. That you need to like them as people to them. And I think that this is very important. Some somehow for me, filming is almost like an act of love. Yeah, yeah. And I need to feel something for these people. And this part of liking the people I feel not only in, like, as part of them in fiction, but also in real life is something that yeah.

00:37:51:15 - 00:37:53:13
Carla
That I could very easily to.

00:37:53:13 - 00:38:02:00
Will
How do people make a film with someone? They're like, It's wild, isn't it? It's like you spend three months in everyday with this person for 10 hours every day. I mean, I don't know how they do.

00:38:02:00 - 00:38:27:05
Carla
It happens in loads, it happens. And I think that it depends on the on the way you portray it, that there's not that that's why I like Claire the name, because she has this love with everyone that she she she portrayed. No, but it's true that gay if if you have like a more kind of cold approach to your characters, they need to know you can one with someone that becomes like.

00:38:27:24 - 00:38:35:19
Will
This and and we only got a couple minutes left. So I thought I may as well ask what's next for you? Is there another film on the horizon already?

00:38:36:01 - 00:39:11:09
Carla
Yeah, yes. Yes. And I think now I became a mom in my life. Is the complicated to do everything but but but lately I started writing before before actually shooting Alcatraz because it had to be shot in 2020 and because I was born. So I have to know this project that on the way it's about it's kind of it's about family memory and how you need to find your family member.

00:39:11:09 - 00:39:24:05
Carla
You know, if you don't mind how when you don't find it, you can't even make it up. My end is that kind of like a research of off again to help see.

00:39:25:11 - 00:39:29:02
Will
Okay and autobiographical again I know your parents died and you were very young, right?

00:39:29:19 - 00:39:44:06
Carla
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a little bit. Yeah, it has to do with my life. But the idea is more talking about, like, the whole generation. That's okay. Yeah. They've had the same situation.

00:39:44:06 - 00:39:54:11
Will
Yeah, I know. It's a bit strange when someone asks you if the film is biographical in some way, because of course it has to be right. You have to find your thing to do a way to connect with it as as a creative. So yeah.

00:39:54:24 - 00:39:55:13
Carla
Absolutely.

00:39:55:18 - 00:40:10:06
Will
I somehow just because I, I saw your interviewer and wife where they called this the second part of a trilogy. They called out for us that kind of like in a thematic trilogy. Jeffrey That's fair. Do you think that's that's what the new film will be?

00:40:10:13 - 00:40:31:05
Carla
I mean, kind of because they are films related to my family time and I really like that because now that I'm thinking about the mix of what makes when the fourth film, I'm hoping to do to do something that has nothing to do with me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so yeah. So maybe it could be.

00:40:32:16 - 00:40:46:02
Will
So it's like your space. Space, sci fi kind of film. Yeah, of course. Okay, good colours then. Lovely to have a shot and I hope that all the viewers get a chance to see press in cinemas and if not already seen enough.

00:40:46:20 - 00:40:48:07
Carla
Yes. Thank you so much.

00:40:50:01 - 00:41:17:14
Will
Thanks for listening to the Indie Tricks Podcast. You can find film content reviews, video essays and more on the Indie Trix YouTube channel W WW Dot YouTube.com slash indie tricks. That's indie i.e. t r i x yes, we spell it with an axe. If you enjoyed listening then please do be so kind as to leave a review and write us on iTunes as well as subscribing on whatever platform you listen to podcasts on.

00:41:17:24 - 00:45:04:21
Will
I'm Will Web and you've been listening to any tricks. Have a good one and bye for now.

00:45:07:03 - 00:45:39:18
Will
Alcatraz won the Golden Bear at Berlinale and Alcatraz won the Golden Bear at Berlinale and Alcatraz won the Golden Bear at Berlinale. Alcatraz won the Golden Bear at Berlinale. Alcatraz won the Golden Bear at Berlinale. Alcatraz won the Golden Bear at Berlinale.

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Episode Description

In Golden Bear-winning drama Alcarràs, the Solé family, peach farmers in the titular region of Spain, have until the end of summer before they will be removed from their land.

Joining me for this conversation is director Carla Simón. Her first film, Summer 1993, was an autobiographical story from her childhood; in our chat here, she discusses broadening her scope, working with actors and crew to create a naturalistic style, and some surprising inspirations. The film is now out in UK cinemas and will soon be available internationally on MUBI.

Listen to our chat to find out more.