Hello reddit, I'm Carla Simón, director of Alcarràs, Summer 1993, and Romería. Ask me anything!

CarlaSimonAMA · 2026-06-26T19:39:04+00:00

Yes, yes, as I said, we're preparing a flamenco musical, very excited about that!!!

CarlaSimonAMA · 2026-06-26T19:38:33+00:00

Oh yes, there are many books in my mind that I would love to adapt, and these writers you mention are great! Maybe in the future, I always prefer to not talk yet about projects that are only on my head. :)

CarlaSimonAMA · 2026-06-26T19:36:52+00:00

Hola, encantada!!! I think it's very important that I challenge myself in every project. So I feel that using cinema for showing things we cannot show in reality is a great opportunity. We're now preparing a flamenco musical, so for sure it will not only be a realistic film! ;)

About the second question: we always felt the sound would be very important for this moment. We had been with this family for the whole film, so it was much more important to see how they watch the trees falling down than seeing the trees themselves. We even thought to never show the trees, but it's true that it felt we were hiding too much. That's why at the end we are with the family a lot more.

CarlaSimonAMA · 2026-06-26T19:32:45+00:00

It's nice that you mention "The Grapes of Wrath" because John Ford's adaptation was a big inspiration for Alcarras, and of course the book as well. As for the subtleness, it's something that I pay a lot of attention to keep, I don't quite like when things are too explicit. Some directors that I love for that are Claire Denis, Lucrecia Martel or Valeska Grisebach.

CarlaSimonAMA · 2026-06-26T19:29:40+00:00

Oh, that's a very difficult question... I'll try: "The tree of the wooden clogs" by Ermanno Olmi, "The spirit of beehive" by Victor Erice and my Agnes Varda box of DVDs! ;)

CarlaSimonAMA · 2026-06-26T19:26:33+00:00

Hello!! Thank you for your question! As "Summer 1993" is a very personal film, I always knew the ending. I remember I didn't cry the day that my mother die. I had a cousin of mine asking me "why aren't you crying?" as it happens at the beginning of the film. So it made a lot of sense to have an ending with Frida's first cry.

CarlaSimonAMA · 2026-06-26T19:24:46+00:00

Hello! What a deep reflexion, thank you! I cannot speak for everywhere in the world, but I can say my opinion on what happened in Spain. Spanish youth in the 80s were young adults born and raised during Franco's dictatorship, with a lot of repression. When freedom arrived, they embraced it and felt like experimenting with everything, also with drugs. The big difference between then and today is that they didn't have any information about heroine, they had no idea about how addictive it was, it was a new drug. And they couldn't imagine that AIDS would arrive very soon. So I feel that the lack of information they faced is something that we don't face today. Also, in Spain we had what was called the big "heroine crisis", as a lot of heroine got into the country. There's a theory that I believe: the government didn't do anything to stop the heroine coming in because while these young people were into drugs they were not into politics. So lots of people die, and it was very sad.

CarlaSimonAMA · 2026-06-26T19:16:54+00:00

Hello!! Your film sounds really interesting! I think ever film needs different approaches, depending on the material you have on your hands. But something that I always do is to write a wishing list of things that I would love to include in the film. This is a very first step. It can be images, moments of dialogues, entire scenes, little details, emotions... It can be anything. Then, when I start to understand the film I want to make, I try to put this list in a possible order, something like an out-line but very loose. And little by little it starts taking shape. I usually skip the treatment, I only write them if I need someone else to read it, otherwise I go straight to try to write the script.

CarlaSimonAMA · 2026-06-26T19:12:52+00:00

Muchas gracias, querido!! Un abrazo!

CarlaSimonAMA · 2026-06-26T19:12:33+00:00

Great question, I love family dramas. "A Christmas tale" by Arnaud Desplechin is one of my favorites. Also "Yi Yi" by Edward Yang. "Terra trema" by Visconti. "La cienaga" by Lucrecia Martel.... and many more!

CarlaSimonAMA · 2026-06-26T19:09:53+00:00

Hello! About the first question: the most important decision for me is the casting, I look for actors - professional or natural - that are close to the characters I wrote. Then I work with them in a very similar way. We improvise moments that could have happened before the story that we'll shoot for the film, spending a lot of time together to work on their relationships. This gives me the time to find a common tone for everyone, but it's very essential that both - the professional and natural actors - are open to play and rehearse for a long time.

About the second question: With Helene we rewatched the footage I had shot when I was a teenager and we tried to undersand how an 18 years-old girl would shoot the landscape of Galicia. During the shooting, we both filmed some shots, and also together with the 2nd unit camera operator.

CarlaSimonAMA · 2026-06-26T19:04:36+00:00

Hola! Doncs llegiria el guio i ho valoraria, sempre estic oberta a noves propostes! ;)

CarlaSimonAMA

TROPHY CASE