The Berlinale made the voice of the countryside and that of women heard by crowning the Spanish film Alcarràs by director Carla Simón, in an almost exclusively female prize list. By winning the Golden Bear, the 35-year-old filmmaker becomes the third young director in a row to be crowned by a major festival, after the French Julia Ducournau, Palme d’Or at Cannes for Titane, and Audrey Diwan, Lion. gold in Venice for L’Événement. If we add to this the triumph at the Oscars 2021 of the American Chloé Zhao, with Nomadland, these most prestigious awards in the cinema world seem to testify, five years after the start of the affair Weinstein, of a desire to rebalance within an industry long dominated by men. In Berlin, the prize list is almost exclusively female, with a prize for Best Direction to Frenchwoman Claire Denis for Avec amour et acharnement and a “genderless” prize for Best interpretation to German-Turkish actress Meltem Kaptan.”C is a trend that is here to stay because the references change. When I was a student, it was difficult to refer to female directors, but little by little it is changing, because there is a will, because we we are half of humanity and that we must therefore tell half of the stories. But we are not there yet”, declared Carla Simón in a press conference, stressing that cinema still has a minority of female directors and producers. .The Golden Bear also sheds light on the future of agriculture and peasants, jostled by modernity. Alcarràs is an ode to smallholders, set over a summer in a sunny corner of Catalonia. 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”. who lost his parents very young and grew up near this small town of Alcarràs, thanked his family, “who grew peaches and without which [elle] would never have been so close to this world”. Carla Simón, who had already received a First Film award in Berlin for Summer 93 (2017), also dedicated her award to “small farming families who cultivate their earth to fill our plates”. follows the Solé family, who for three generations have been cultivating hundreds of peach trees on the land of wealthy landowners, but the latter want to uproot the trees to install solar panels, and suggest that the Solés adapt to this new situation, or The head of the family, Quimet, refuses to see his world disappear. , is filmed with great te address. The film is both moving and profound on the issues of the forced modernization of the countryside or the conflict between economy and ecology. Carla Simón succeeds the Romanian Radu Jude, Golden Bear last year, after a week of competition carried out at a brisk pace due to the Covid. The organizers can congratulate themselves on having, at the cost of drastic sanitary measures, brought the competition to an end after an ersatz festival, online only, last year. The only downside: the absence of a big name in cinema, the Frenchwoman Isabelle Huppert, who was to receive a reward for her entire acting career. Tested positive for Covid-19 the day before, she had to give up the trip to Berlin. . It will be held from June 10 to July 3, 2022 and will offer a selection of films from the 2021 and 2022 editions, with previews, unreleased films and award-winning films. The detailed program will be announced shortly.
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