The rising star of Spanish cinema discusses being orphaned at six, new feature Romer\u00eda and why she always works with children<\/p>\n
Family reunions in European arthouse cinema are almost always unhappy events, on a scale of strife that ranges from simmering resentment (Louis Malle\u2019s Milou in May) to spectacular score-settling (Thomas Vinterberg\u2019s Festen). There are still splatters of bad blood on the Sunday best in the films of Carla Sim\u00f3n, but the Spanish director has a rare gift: she makes you leave the cinema with renewed faith that having relatives and keeping in touch with them may actually be a wonderful thing.<\/p>\n
Indeed no film-maker working in Europe now is as capable of turning birthday gatherings, garden parties or poolside barbecues into thrillingly sprawling canvases of human virtue and vice as this 39-year-old rising star. From a riotous water fight in the Berlinale Golden Bear-winning farming drama Alcarr\u00e0s<\/a> to a foul-mouthed dinner table singalong in her new film Romer\u00eda, Sim\u00f3n directs kinship meetings with the attention to detail that other film-makers may invest in action sequences or dance routines.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/54778250d67b5e5071ac9bd10c9def07c4ae8b01\/0_0_3199_2556\/master\/3199.jpg?width=140&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=e27d6ab0746b2cc2005d72653c5d5562\" "\\"Carla")
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