Carla Simón Pipó (born 29 December 1986) is a Spanish filmmaker. She is best known for her films Summer 1993 (2017) and Alcarràs (2022); for the latter she received the Golden Bear at the 72nd Berlin International Film Festival.
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Early life and education
Carla Simón Pipó was born on 29 December 1986 in Barcelona and spent her youth in the Catalan village of Les Planes d'Hostoles. By the age of six, her parents had died of AIDS, so she had to live with her uncle and his family in Garrotxa in northern Catalonia. Her father was Galician.
She first studied filmmaking at the University of California, Santa Barbara, United States, where she made two short films: Women (2009) and Lovers (2010).
In 2009, Simón graduated with a degree in audiovisual communication at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. In 2010, she studied television work at Televisió de Catalunya and later at the London Film School. During her time in London she directed the documentary film Born Positive and the short film Lipstick.
Career
Simón's first feature film, Summer 1993 (2017), is based on her own experiences in her youth. The plot revolves around a young girl and her reaction to and ways of handling her parents' sudden death. Filming took place over six weeks in rural Garrotxa, where Simón grew up.
The film had its world premiere at the Generation section of the 67th Berlin International Film Festival, where it won the award for Debut Film. It also won 30 awards in numerous festivals and ceremonies, amongst them the Golden Biznaga for Best Film at the Málaga Film Festival, and the Goya Award for Best New Director. It was also chosen as Spain's submission for Best Foreign Film at the 90th Academy Awards, the second Catalan-language film to be submitted to the Academy Awards by the Spanish Film Academy.
Simón's second feature, Alcarràs (2022), won the Golden Bear at the 72nd Berlinale, becoming the first Catalan-language film to do so. The film follows the disappearance of family-based agricultural activities, in the traditional peach-harvesting fields of Catalonia. The film was also selected as the Spanish entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 95th Academy Awards, but it was not nominated.
Simón's third film, Romería (2025), was selected for the main competition of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Palme d'Or, marking her first film at the festival's main competition. A semi-autobiographical film, the plot follows a young orphaned woman travelling to Vigo seeking the truth about her biological father's past, an AIDS victim in the early 1990s.
In 2026, Simón was announced as jury president for the shorts films competition of the 2026 Cannes Film Festival.
Personal life
Simón has a son, Manel, born in June 2022. When she presented her short film Carta a mi madre para mi hijo, she breastfed her baby, then barely two months old, in front of the press at the 79th Venice International Film Festival, to show that it is possible to reconcile motherhood with a professional career. In 2025, she walked the red carpet at the 78th Cannes Film Festival while pregnant with her second son.