Alcarràs

Carla Simón’s paean to her home—Alcarràs, in north-eastern Spain—captured the Golden Bear as best film at the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year. Using non-professional actors who live and work in this peach-orchard region of Catalonia, she tells the story of the Solé family, who have spent summers harvesting peaches since the Spanish Civil War. However, this year could be the last if the landowner’s plan to replace the peach trees with solar panels comes to fruition. The result is a rift within the close-knit family, who run the risk of losing more than just their home… ‘Lovely, unforced Chekhovian notes grace the gently observed snapshot of a summer of unstoppable change and momentous upheaval… The film’s immersive, lived-in nature has a transfixing grip… The prevailing mood is one of melancholy for a way of life under threat and stability abruptly upended. But that sadness is tempered throughout by gratitude for the beauty and bounty of [the] land.’—David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter Winner Golden Bear in Berlin. \"a supberb film that proofs that fiction is sometimes the most powerful way to uncover the truth\"