TRIBUTES AND RETROSPECTIVES

Carla Simón was born in Barcelona in 1986 and grew up in the Catalan village of Planes d’Hostoles. When she was six both her parents died of AIDS, and she was taken in by her uncle and his family in Garrotxa, in the north of Catalonia. This experience provided the backdrop for her first film, Estiu 1993 (Summer 1993) (2017). The film is about a young girl and her difficulties in coming to terms with the feeling of losing her mother, and also her home. The film won the Grand Prix in the Generation section at the Berlinale and the Best First Film Award in all sections. It also won 3 Goyas.

Carla Simón previously studied at the University of California and the Autonomous University of Barcelona before winning a scholarship to the London Film School. There she wrote and directed short films, including Lipstick (2013), which was selected for several international festivals. Carla has also been heavily involved in teaching cinema to children and teenagers, through the “Young for Film!” association she set up in 2013, and also the “Cinema en Curs” programme. She has continued making short films alongside the production of her feature films. As well as her two feature-length films, the Festival will be showcasing a selection of her shorts, some of which have never been seen before in France, enabling you to discover these luminous films, often focused on young people and tinged with melancholy.