AFTER last year’s virtual edition, Berlin’s huge film festival returned this year to in-person events, with a boldly international programme the scope of which we we haven’t seen for some time.

The Golden Bear went to Alcarras by female Spanish director Carla Simon is a semi-autobiographical, bittersweet tale about belonging, set in her native village (Alcarras). Simon focuses solidly on the earth, and those who work it, examining society’s fractured relationship with agriculture and the disappearance of the old way of life.

The grandfather of the family was given the right to farm the land by the wealthy Pinyol clan during the Spanish civil war, in the days when your word was your bond. Nothing exists on paper, and the new Pinyol now wants to tear down the peach orchards to build fields of solar panels. With stunning camerawork in deliberately natural colour, it is an elegant film, acted with real power and a strong feeling for its ordinary farmers.