Spanish director Carla Simon’s film Alcarras, which explores divisions in a close-knit family of Catalan farmers when they face eviction from their ancestral plot, won the Berlin Film Festival’s top prize on Wednesday.

Simon grew up on a peach farm in the village of Alcarras and her film was made using amateur actors from that area whom she recruited at village fairs and coached into playing several generations of a family of smallholders.

Announcing the best film award, the festival’s first since returning to in-person screenings after last year’s coronavirus-enforced break, jury president M Night Shyamalan praised her skill in marshalling powerful performances from a cast that ranged from child actors to people in their 80s...