Carolina Ferre: I went to the Empordà to raise my children and I did not count on the fact that this would make me disappear from the list of presenters

BarcelonaCarolina Ferre (Cocentaina, 1974) has been a familiar face on television for more than thirty years. She began her career at the now-defunct Canal 9 and has worked for Telecinco, Antena 3, La Sexta, and À Punt, where until 2023 she presented the Valencian version of Catch me if you can. She has also been a collaborator on various TV3 programs, which selected her as one of the contestants vips of the new edition of The crossing, which has landed on 3Cat this week.

You are part of the contestants of The VIP crossing. Had you ever imagined that you would end up participating in a survival program?

— I have imagined myself doing almost nothing so few times, that I go there and do it with total normality. That I am presented with doing La travessa? I do it. At the time, the opportunity to do Tu cara me suena arose and I did it without knowing how to sing, without knowing how to dance, dressing up. With a great sense of the ridiculous, mind you, even if it doesn't seem like it. But I did it. When you dare to do things that you wouldn't normally do, wow, you feel so good...! La travessa is the most extreme thing I have done. I don't know what I will be able to do from now on, right? I would still have Supervivientes, but, well, if you see me there it means things are going very badly for me and that I am going hungry.

Do you have a very heightened sense of the ridiculous?

— I have a lot, so much, but it passes. Before and after I have a terrible time, that's for sure. A few days ago we saw the first episode [of La travessa] and I was so embarrassed I could die. And I said "But why?" Since I had already done it, I had already forgotten about it, it was like a thing of the past, but that day I faced the images and the contest. I am happy and proud, but I saw myself with that face all red...

In La travessa you are paired with Nerea Sanfe, whom you became friends with while working at À Punt. You are from two different generations: she is 34 years old and you are 52. What has this friendship brought you?

— It is a beautiful experience, our friendship. It is like a parallel life. I had never had such a young friend. It was love at first sight on television: I was hosting a program and she was doing a segment on it, and I noticed that when she came in everything worked very well. Off-screen we started creating this friendship. And when the opportunity for La travessa arose, both she and I said "if we don't go together, we don't go". In her, I see the desire to live, the desire to do things non-stop. Also everything she does to stay in touch with other friends. I like that a lot about Nerea and I have copied it from her. Because sometimes you go about your life and you put contact with people aside. And she maintains that daily or weekly contact even if it is just with a WhatsApp, and it is something that has amazed me. I think that thanks to her we have continued to grow as friends, because she is always very attentive. And now I am also attentive to her and other friendships.

Watching La travessa gives the impression that you are a very optimistic person. Is that a real perception?

— Yes, I am. Sometimes, things don't go entirely well for me, but it is true that inside me I have something like a happiness that I visualize as a golden ball that, even if I am having a hard time, shines within me. It is an incredible thing and it is not spiritual at all, I just feel it that way. There are very tough moments in life and there are super horrible situations, but I always have hope, desire, and enthusiasm. And I hope this light never goes out in me despite everything.

You started your television career at Canal 9 and you explain that they hired you because you spoke Valencian and other colleagues did not. Has language been essential to your career?

— Totally, totally. We were at the faculty and we saw a note stuck on the bulletin board asking for people to go to a casting at Canal 9 to present a segment, within the news program, about the environment. We went there enthusiastically because, obviously, we were in our first year of university, and being able to enter Canal 9 to work and not just do an internship... I was so excited, and my classmates too. But, what happened? That they spoke Spanish. They knew Valencian, but it was not their mother tongue. They did the test as best they could in that learned Valencian, which shows. And, of course, me, Valencian from Cocentaina, where we have a reputation in the Comtat for speaking well. And yes, yes, they opted for my Valencian, because it wasn't even the photogenicity. I see those tests, poor me, at 21 years old, and I was terrified.

A few years ago you tweeted: "My reason for being is in Valencian". In recent years have you had to defend the language many times?

— Look, I am so fed up, I mean, fed up. When I started university and arrived in Valencia from Cocentaina, no one spoke Valencian. I was going crazy, I couldn't understand it, because in my town everyone spoke Valencian. It seemed the most normal thing to me. I hadn't left my town before going to Valencia and I believed that the whole Valencian Country spoke Valencian. For me it was a great shock, I just couldn't believe it. I hung out with people from my town, with someone from Ontinyent who spoke Valencian, because, in the end, speaking the same language also unites, it makes you feel more like family. I wanted to continue living in Valencia in Valencian but I realized it was difficult. I tried, but I found myself in situations where I had to switch to Spanish: in shops, in shopping centers... and it made me very angry.

Do you now switch to Spanish when someone does not answer you in Valencian?

— I used to do it before because I felt more uncomfortable, but now I am quite a bit firmer. For many years now, I immediately start speaking in Valencian and continue speaking in Valencian. If I see that the situation is very serious and they don't understand me at all, I switch to Spanish, or I try to explain to the other person what I mean. Just as before, out of fear, respect, and a bit of insecurity, I would enter and speak Spanish, now I never do. It would be missing something. It seems as if we have to apologize for speaking in Valencian.

You have also done part of your career in Catalonia. Right now you collaborate on different programs.

— When I started my degree it also seemed normal to me, because from Cocentaina I watched TV3. For me, Catalonia was an extension of Valencia, and vice versa. We all spoke the same language. It is true that here [in Catalonia] Canal 9 was not watched, except in Tarragona. I saw it as so normal. Later, reality made me see that it was not. It is not so easy to work at the same level in Valencia and Catalonia, but it is possible and we do it. The other way around right now would be impossible: I do not know any Catalan, perhaps it is also because they haven't wanted to, who works at À Punt, for example. But it should be the norm, why not? It should be the norm to keep passing professionals back and forth.

Last year you celebrated 30 years working in television and you made an Instagram post in which you said that before television chased you and now it is you who chases it. Is it very difficult for professionals over 40 and 50 years old to remain at the forefront?

— Yes, yes. Surely there are professionals who haven't experienced it, but in general I find that it is so. Until I was 40, 43, 44, I had never called anyone to ask for work. They had always called me, they had always looked for me, I was always at the table of potential program presenters. But not now. I don't know if it's because of age, I don't know if the trend of presenters who don't come from the world of journalism has also become very popular. That is great, because, listen, in the end it is communication and we are communicators. It is also true that I moved away without wanting to, without thinking about it, a little bit from TV, because I went to live in the Empordà, to raise my children. I have three children, the second ones were twins, and that took a lot of time and dedication. It is also true that I wanted to raise them and, furthermore, in that very bucolic environment I was very happy. I didn't count on the fact that perhaps this would make me disappear a little from that table of presenters where there were always a few of us.

—

Do you think the invisibility of 50-year-old presenters is linked to aesthetic pressure?

— Probably, yes. I don't want to generalize because it's true that now there is also more diversity, although little. Perhaps there is one presenter or two, one who has gray hair and the other who is a larger size. The last program I did on À Punt was Atrapa'm si pots, which is also done on TV3, and I realized that at the time I was the only female game show host in the whole country. Incredible. All game shows are hosted by men. In fact, I was preceded by a man and they replaced me with a man. It blows my mind, it amazes me. Now television, in prime time, when you watch it, except in the morning, is plagued by men. And they indeed are pot-bellied, gray-haired, older. There you do see a lot of diversity. But if you are a woman and you appear with gray hair and such, they criticize you.

You were talking about À Punt. How do you see the channel right now?

— Whenever I watch À Punt, which is rarely, I feel like crying. I miss it so much, because the beginning was super exciting, it was what a public television station should be. It was a commitment to quality public television in Valencian. I couldn't find a single fault with it. After two years, when the management changed, the changes began. Every executive who comes in wants to do their own thing, wants to bring in their own people, and it starts to lose its essence. I think that at the beginning it was quite plural, very diverse, and above all, they were very committed to quality programs completely in Valencian. And without bullfighting, of course. I thought that I would never in my life see bullfights on À Punt. Nor programs entirely in Spanish. I swear to you, eh? On the verge of tears every day.

If you could write a letter to the Three Wise Men about possible future projects, what would you ask for?

— I have done a lot of things, but I hope I still have many things left to do and that they excite me. I would like to work with Nerea [Sanfe], to work with Raquel Sans, for example, with whom I have formed a very good friendship on La travessa. We are both the same age, very similar and very different at the same time. Yes, to do something together, you know? To have someone to lean on, someone to laugh with. I have already been in a dressing room alone and it was sad. Because you are there, with all the responsibility of carrying a program all by yourself. Now I am more eager to share everything: the good things, the bad ones, the most intimate moments of reviewing the rundown, scripts, and dressing rooms.

And a great desire to work.

— Well yes, dear, mostly because we have to eat. I have many hobbies, I mean it wouldn't matter if I couldn't work at this and could survive doing something else, but, obviously, I like my profession. And yes, I want to work because I have three children, three! It's not for me anymore, it's for my little ones [laughs].