Aina Clotet • Director of and actress in Alive
“The film is torn between two forces: fear and desire”
- CANNES 2026: The winner of the Rising Star Award talks about her debut as a feature-film director, her sense of humour, science and resilience
After winning the Best Actress award at Canneseries for her series This Is Not Sweden, (which she also created and directed), Catalan filmmaker Aina Clotet has now received the Rising Star Award at Critics’ Week at the 79th Cannes Film Festival, for her performance in her directorial debut, Alive.
Cineuropa: How would you sum up your time at Cannes, which has welcomed you both for your series and your film?
Aina Clotet: My time at Cannes has been a dream come true. We’re absolutely thrilled that a section as demanding as Critics’ Week selected the film. That alone felt like a prize; it put us on the map, opened doors for us and connected us with the world. To think that, out of over a thousand films, they chose just seven seemed impossible, so being part of that selection was already a huge honour. Receiving one of the most important awards makes us feel deeply grateful. It’s a wonderful opportunity for the film to travel and connect with an international audience. We’re now really looking forward to sharing it with Spanish audiences on 19 June, with French audiences on 14 October and, hopefully, with many more viewers in other countries soon.
Is humour an excellent way to cope with problems?
Without a doubt, it’s the best antidote for dealing with all problems. Both Valentina Viso, my co-writer on Alive, and I naturally approach life with humour. But because humour is fragile, I tried to handle it with care in the direction. I worked on striking that balance throughout the entire process, from casting to editing, so that this lightness would be present without undermining the depth of the story. I wanted this woman’s journey towards liberation to be seen from a bright perspective, because I believe humour allows us to engage with dramatic and complex themes in a more honest and human way.
How much of yourself is there in the lead character in Alive, apart from the fact that she’s also the daughter of a scientist?
The film is fiction, but there’s a lot of me in it. Nora’s energy — resilient and passionate — is similar to mine, though there’s also a lot of Valentina Viso and some of our friends in her. She’s a forty-year-old woman with fears, contradictions and imperfections, and I think many women will recognise themselves in her. There’s also something personal in being the daughter of scientists. I really wanted to explore the world of science and engage with real research. I found it fascinating that a woman with a deep fear of death was, at the same time, researching how to prolong life in a world affected by drought and focused on mental health. We found this contradiction extremely interesting.
Why do we cling to life when we come face to face with death?
When we receive shocking news or feel death close by, we become aware of something we try to forget: impermanence. I think we struggle to live with that idea, and it was one of the themes I most wanted to explore. In Nora’s case, when fear takes hold of her body, what she desperately needs is to feel physically alive. That’s why she throws herself so fiercely into desire, into the love story, but also into living everything with intensity: at work, in her relationships, in every decision. The film is torn between two forces: fear and desire. And that headlong rush comes from an insatiable need to feel alive.
Is it difficult to balance comedy and drama?
Yes, because balancing the tone was one of the most delicate aspects of the film. From the script stage, we tried to ensure that comedy and drama coexisted naturally, without one cancelling out the other. We wanted the humour to feel like a breath of fresh air within emotionally intense moments. From a directorial point of view, it was a matter of careful calibration. Tone depends on so many elements: pacing, editing, music, but above all on the actors and how they sustain the emotional truth of each scene. Some sequences could easily have tipped into being too dramatic or too caricatured, so we always tried to find a balance between truth and lightness. I think the challenge was making sure the viewer could feel moved, laugh and feel uncomfortable almost within the same scene, because life often works that way.
(Translated from Spanish)
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