Carla Simón Wants Rosalía After Latin Grammy Nod for 'Flamenco'

Carla Simón's short film "Flamenco" earned a Latin Grammy nomination for Best Longform Music Video — and the "Romería" director says the honor has opened a door she intends to walk through. "I would love, love to work with Rosalía. I hope it happens someday," Simón told Variety, calling herself a massive fan of the singer.

The nomination came out of left field for the Catalan filmmaker. "It's a very happy surprise, because it's not my world," she said. "I know how cinema awards work, but I don't know music awards. I found it crazy but very exciting at the same time. When you come from another world, a nomination like that is really something you celebrate."

"Flamenco" premiered in May at the Cannes Film Festival as one of three shorts presented by Audiovisual From Spain under its Where Talent Ignites campaign, run by the Spanish trade and investment body ICEX. The campaign arrived during a banner year for Spanish cinema on the Croisette, alongside Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo's award-tipped "La Bola Negra" and Rodrigo Sorogoyen's "The Beloved."

Who made 'Flamenco'?

The film stars dancer and choreographer Rocío Molina, a reinventor of the flamenco tradition whose accolades include Spain's National Dance Award, the Silver Lion at the Venice Biennale and the Gold Medal of Merit in the Fine Arts. Gris Jordana, cinematographer of "La Bola Negra," shot the short, capturing both a large funeral procession by a riverbank and the claustrophobic interior of a bar crowded with dancers.

The procession scene posed a hard deadline. "We were in the blue hours, so we didn't have much time," Simón recalled. "I also loved the bar scene where everyone is together in a tableau because it was eight in the morning and it was a party. It made me realize flamenco people are always ready to celebrate together. The problem was ending the party [laughs]."

Before shooting, Simón, Molina and the choreographers spent a week in a mini residency working out whether music or choreography came first, and how the camera should move around both. "It was amazing, being together for a week and shaping every scene," Simón said.

What does this change for Simón's next film?

Her follow-up feature to "Romería," which played in Cannes competition, will also be about flamenco, though plot details remain under wraps. She is now locking the script. The director calls the experience of making "Flamenco" "a great help," singling out the art form's "energy" as the most valuable lesson: "When you do something with music, and if it's flamenco, there's a specific energy."

She draws a direct line from dance to cinema. "I love flamenco because there is a contradiction in terms of energy and emotion that is very similar to what I look for in my films: this idea of tragedy and pain and something dark existing next to something joyful and celebratory," she said. "You have both in one dance – you feel all of it at the same time. It's contradictory, but possible."

Is a music-video career next?

Simón is unequivocal. "It's another language, but very close to cinema, and coming from cinema I think you can bring a different look to music videos. I would love to direct more music videos someday," she said. She also "loves" directing shorts and returns to the form after every feature: "Short films are a way of trying things out, to play; I feel more free somehow." A feature, by contrast, carries producers, distributors and audience calculations that constrain experiment.

"Now I am deep in writing and happy to know there is a way of figuring things out in the shoot," she added. "It was also beautiful to meet all these people with whom I hope to collaborate again. It's all very exciting." "Flamenco" and the other Where Talent Ignites shorts are available on the initiative's official website. Whether Rosalía picks up the phone may decide what Simón directs between now and her flamenco feature.