Abstract
After her successful debut with “Estiu 1993” (2017), filmmaker Anna Simón’s latest feature film “Alcarràs” (2022) has been equally well received by the audience and the critics, receiving the Golden Bear in the Berlin International Film Festival of 2022. The movie, set in Alcarràs (a rural town in the Catalan province of Lleida, Spain), depicts the last harvest of a family of farmers who need to move out of their lands because of the installment of a new field of solar panels. Simón presents this intervention as an invasive entity that ends up destroying the lifestyle of this small community as well as the landscape they have taken care of for decades, therefore problematizing the impact of the expansion of renewable energy production fields in rural areas. “Alcarràs” takes a stand on the defense of the rural lifestyle while presenting the challenges and opportunities of its way of living. In this paper, I show and analyze the creative strategies that Clara Simón uses to support her point of view, awakening an arrange of questions. Are massive solar panel fields another way to keep the urban centers’ high energy consumption rhythm while avoiding a deeper conversation on implementing more sustainable ways of living? Do rural communities need to adjust to a new system of producing renewable energy, less dependent on fossil fuels and nuclear power plants, for the greater good? Which possibilities of win-win interactions can be explored amongst these realities?
Presenters
Robert Casas RoigéAssistant Professor of Spanish: Iberian and Latin American Cultural Studies, Global Languages and Cultures, Hood College, Maryland, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Multiple Legacies: Heritage, Traditions, Local Ecologies, Knowledge, Values, Protection
KEYWORDS
Film, Rural Communities, Solar Panel Fields, Agriculture, Renewable Energies, Landscape
