Carla Simón


Carla Simón Pipó is a Catalan-Spanish film director. Her 2017 Catalan-language debut film Summer 1993 became Spain's nominee for Best Foreign Film in the 90th Academy Awards.

Biography

Simón was born in Barcelona and spent her youth in the Catalan village of Les Planes d'Hostoles. By the age of six, both her parents died of AIDS so she had to live with her uncle and his family in Garrotxa in northern Catalonia. This experience was the background to her first film Estiu 1993 which premiered in 2017.
Summer 1993 was filmed in 2017 and became her first feature film production. The film is about a young girl and her reaction to and ways of handling her parents' sudden death. The film was produced by Inicia Films y Avalon P.C. and the filming took place over six weeks in rural Garrotxa where Simón grew up.
The film has received plenty of attention at various film festivals were it has been shown. It has won over thirty awards, amongst them the award for Debut Film at the Berlin Film Festival. It was also chosen as Spain's nominee for Best Foreign Film at the 90th Academy Awards, the second film in Catalan to be nominated for the award ever.
In 2009, Simón graduated from studying film science 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.

Filmography