Filmmaker Carla Simón to Receive the Brain Film Fest 2026 Special Award

Author of an internationally acclaimed trilogy, she will collect the award on 11 March at the opening of the festival dedicated to the brain

Filmmaker Carla Simón will receive the Brain Film Fest 2026 Special Award on 11 March in Barcelona, as part of the opening of the 9th Brain Film Fest, a festival dedicated to exploring and promoting knowledge of the brain through cinema and culture. Driven by the Pasqual Maragall Foundation and co-organised by Minimal Films, the festival will hold its ninth edition from 11 to 15 March at the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB). In addition to the honorary award, the Brain Film Fest will, for the first time, screen together Simón’s three films — Summer 1993 (2017), Alcarràs (2022) and Romería (2025) — which form a widely recognised autobiographical trilogy.

This year’s award honours a body of work deeply connected to memory, emotions, identity and family relationships — themes that are central to understanding the human condition and the functioning of the brain. According to the festival’s directors, Cristina Maragall, President of the Pasqual Maragall Foundation, and filmmaker Albert Solé, Carla Simón’s work “has played a decisive role in building an intimate and honest collective imaginary around memory, grief and family bonds, with a sensitive gaze that connects directly with the emotions and mental processes that define who we are”.

The Brain Film Fest Special Award, created in 2022, is presented annually to a figure from the cultural world whose work has had a significant influence on the collective imagination surrounding brain-related themes. Previous recipients include Isabel Coixet, Carme Elias, Maite Alberdi and Nicolas Philibert.

A career shaped by memory and an intimate gaze

Carla Simón was born in 1986 and comes from a large family which, as she herself has explained, is “a bottomless well of stories”. From this family universe emerged her vocation as a filmmaker, driven by a desire to portray the complexity of the human condition and, in particular, family relationships.

After graduating in Audiovisual Communication from the UAB, Simón was awarded a scholarship from the “la Caixa” Foundation to study at the London Film School. Her feature film debut, Summer 1993 (2017), premiered at the Berlinale, where it won the Best First Feature Award and the Grand Jury Prize in the Generation Kplus section. The film received more than 30 international awards, the Goya for Best New Director, and was selected to represent Spain at the Academy Awards. In 2018, Simón also received the Women in Motion Emerging Talent Award at the Cannes Film Festival.

In 2022 she premiered the short film Letter to My Mother for My Son, as part of the Miu Miu Women’s Tales project, presented at the Giornate degli Autori section of the Venice Film Festival.

That same year saw the release of her second feature film, Alcarràs (2022), which won the Golden Bear at the 72nd Berlinale. The film was selected at more than 90 international festivals, sold in over 35 territories, represented Spain at the 2023 Academy Awards, received three European Film Award nominations and won six Gaudí Awards.

Her third film, Romería (2025), had its world premiere in the Official Selection at the Cannes Film Festival, consolidating her position as one of the most significant voices in contemporary European cinema. It also leads the nominations for the 18th Gaudí Awards (2026) with thirteen nominations.

In 2020, Carla Simón was honoured with the National Culture Award, granted by the National Council for Culture and the Arts (CoNCA), and in 2023 she received the National Film Award, presented by Spain’s Ministry of Culture.