When Miu Miu picked up the phone to ask Carla Simon (Barcelona, 1986) who was the next director of one of the short films Women’s Tales, the director of Alcarràs she was pregnant with her first child. Immersed in the promotion of the film and in her new life project, Simón did not hesitate to respond with “a resounding yes” despite the little free time she had at the time. She did not want to miss the opportunity to be part of the film series promoted by the Italian firm to give visibility to female talent behind the camera. “I felt some pressure to be on a list that featured great female directors [como Agnès Varda o Lucrecia Martel, entre otras] They are references from which I have learned a lot. But in the end you have to shut those voices out, think about who you are and focus on what you want to talk about.”
Making a flash-forward from that moment, Carla Simon presents Letter to my mother for my son with her little one as part of the cast. Our talk takes place via Zoom, with a few minutes of delay caused by the rigors of breastfeeding, and days before the Spanish Film Academy preselected Alcarras, his second feature film, as a candidate to compete for the Oscar for best international film at the next edition of the Hollywood Awards. After working with actors amateur In this film that narrates the last harvest of a family of peach trees, Simón changes the fields and land of Lleida for the glamor of Miu Miu garments and a stellar cast led by Ángela Molina. However, it maintains the essence that has led it to success: dealing with issues that concern it on a personal level with a very personal sensitivity. Now it’s motherhood’s turn.
The short begins with a phrase: ‘Dear mom, I want to tell you that I will soon be a mother’. What meaning do those words have for you?
It’s curious. I have very digested the death of my mother, but when I got pregnant I began to think a lot about her and I understood things that do not feel the same way until you go through it. I think it’s normal for people who have lost our parents to return to them in a certain way when we have a child.
Do you feel more connected to her?
Definitely. And with more capacity to understand what he went through, how he felt… It’s nice, but it’s also hard, because everything is much stronger than he could have imagined.
How was it to change the customs of Alcarràs and amateur actors in the world of luxury and stars like Ángela Molina?
It has been different. My films have a more realistic tone and now I wanted to explore something more dreamlike and poetic. I had always wanted to work with Ángela Molina since I met her years ago and the idea of her representing my mother was very powerful because she is a very maternal woman, with five children, and she has a mystical side that has a lot to do with the project.
Her character and the one played by Cecilia Gómez are united by garments that they share and inherit, such as a necklace or a coat. What power do you think clothing or accessories have in connecting several generations of women?
The idea of the transmission was the first thing that came to my mind when I started this project because when I think of fashion I think of my grandmother. She loved clothes, she was very presumptuous and used several clothes that were hers every day. I also wear a ring that was an earring from my great-grandmother, which my grandmother later had, and which I later inherited from my aunt. I wanted to talk about that transmission capacity that clothes and jewelery possess, it is a way of keeping previous generations in mind. Plus, Miu Miu’s clothes are so special that the idea becomes even more powerful.
Tell us about your relationship with fashion. How do you face the red carpet moment?
Before brand new Summer 1993 It was an unexplored world for me, but when the galas began, Teresa Helbig called me to offer to dress me. When I went to her workshop, and saw that it is an artisan and manual work, which passes from generation to generation, I understood that it is an art. Since then I feel more like fashion, I play more and I pay attention to it.
In the short film, the protagonist misses having more videos of her family. Now that we record everything, that each child has their childhood immortalized in its entirety, how do you think it influences the construction of personality?
It seems to me something very important and that is why it is a central idea of the short film. I lost my parents when I was very young and I lack that family memory, there are things that I will never know because they will not be able to tell me about them and the rest of my relatives either do not know them or do not remember them. I feel that I lack that memory and sometimes I have even had to invent it. Now that I have a son I don’t want that to happen to him, it’s a way to repair what I lack.
At the moment your little one is already in the short film and is also part of the cast Ainet Jounou (Alcarràs). What does that constant childish gaze bring to your cinema?
I have always loved working with children. I am very sensitive to his gaze, perhaps because I have lived a more vulnerable childhood. They have complex psychology and emotions, they add naturalness and mystery because they don’t fully understand things. Even though it’s chaotic having kids on set, they help me set a style.
If you had not been a filmmaker, perhaps you would have chosen a profession linked to them?
Yes, I have it very clear. In fact, when I was studying my degree, I was a volunteer in a Casal [ONG que ayuda a niños y jóvenes en situación de vulnerabilidad] del Raval in Barcelona and I hesitated to change. In the end I got hooked on cinema… I still work with children, but in a different way.
Despite being the first Spanish director to win the Berlinale, is living from independent cinema in Spain a utopia?
Unfortunately it is. It is still a very precarious job and we have become accustomed to working with passion, but with very little money, accepting salaries that do not correspond. Alcarràs it is an exception because it was a co-production with Italy and that allowed it to be done in a decent way and at a decent time. This more artisanal production model, which is the one that ends up traveling to festivals and representing us culturally, is not taken care of. It’s a problem. I don’t know if I know someone who lives only from independent cinema.
In this short, habitual themes of your cinema are recognized, such as family and mourning. Is it proof that you can be true to yourself even when commissioning a firm?
Yes, it is a special project because Miu Miu gave me a lot of freedom. In general, I do not accept many projects like this because for me it is important that they connect with what I want to tell, that they make sense in my vital moment and of artistic exploration. That’s the only way they come out well and I enjoy them. You have to know how to choose.
Why do you think it’s important to support all-female talent with initiatives like Women’s Tales?
Proposals like this help in the pending historical reparation with the issue of who tells the stories, to finally reach a natural parity. We women are half of the world and we should tell half of the stories, but we are not there but rather far away. Although it may seem to some that we talk too much about it, we must focus on the problem to do justice. We are on the way, but there are years left.
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Carla Simón: “Women should tell half the stories”