Catalan box office hit ‘Alcarràs’ arrives on streaming platforms

The movie of the year in Catalonia, 'Alcarràs,' arrives on audiovisual streaming platforms on Friday.

Carla Simón's second feature film can be seen on Prime Video, Filmin, iTunes, Movistar Plus+, Vodafone, Orange, Google Play, and Rakuten. 

The film, which picked up the biggest award at the Berlinale International Film Festival this year, has sold 365,000 tickets in cinemas across Spain this year, taking in around €2.2 million at the box office.

‘Alcarràs’ was also recently shown at the Sarajevo Film Festival, in cinemas in Germany and Holland, and next week it arrives to theatres in Greece, and soon at the New York Film Festival. 

Speaking to the Catalan News Agency, the editorial director and co-founder of streaming platform Filmin, Jaume Ripoll, affirms that the success of the movie shows that the “epic of everyday life is more relevant to today’s viewers than the fake epic of computers” and special effects.

He also believes that the film arriving on platforms will be a great opportunity for viewers who have not yet seen it or for those who want to see it again.

"If there's one thing that 'Alcarràs' has achieved very well, it's to make you, as a spectator, part of the protagonist's family, and when the journey ends you're another member," Ripoll says. He also points out that director Carla Simón manages to make the viewer feel that they are watching a true story, one that is not fiction. 

"The success of the film in cinemas and festivals shows us the way forward as an industry with medium-high budget films, which are not thrillers or have special effects or are not epic films.” 

So far this year, according to data from Spain’s culture ministry announced last week, the most watched Spanish film in Spain this year is 'Padre no hay más que uno 3', by Santiago Segura, which alone accounts for almost 2 million of the 5 million cinema tickets sold in Spain. In second place is 'Alcarràs', with 365,000 tickets sold. 

'Alcarràs' has seen cinema visits for a film in Catalan skyrocket in the first half of 2022. According to an analysis by the ACN based on the statistical yearbooks of Culture between 1997 and 2020 and Comscore data facilitated by the Institut Català d'Empreses Culturales (ICEC) for 2021 and 2022, never in at least the past 25 years have 5% of cinema tickets sold in a year been for films in Catalan.

The figure for the first five and a half months of 2022 stands at 6.7% thanks to Simón's award-winning film. 

In just two months, the momentum of the film is comparable to that of 'Pa Negre', which garnered 230,000 viewers in Catalan.

‘Alcarràs’ tells the story of the last fruit harvest that a family goes through on their farm before they must leave the land after the owners decide to install solar panels. It’s a tribute to rural life, family farms, and respectful agriculture, and made history as the first-ever Catalan film to take the biggest award at one of the most prestigious international film festivals in the world in Berlin in February.

'Alcarràs' is Carla Simón's second film, after 'Estiu 1993' (Summer 1993) – in both productions, her personal story is obvious.

Have a listen to our Filling the Sink podcast in order to get an in-depth analysis of the movie, its director and the current situation of Catalan cinema.