EXCLUSIVE: Mexican actor-director Diego Luna laughed when he recalled his one request to Spanish producer Valérie Delpierre of Barcelona-based Inicia Films when shooting his fourth directorial feature Ashes in early 2025.
“I told Valérie I didn’t want to work with more than 40 people and she said, ‘Well you’re describing a mid-sized film in Spain,’” remembered Luna.
In the end there were 55 crew in Mexico and 45 in Spain. The coproduction between Inicia, Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal’s La Corriente del Golfo, Inna Payán’s Mexican outfit Animal De Luz, and Diego Rabasa’s Perro Azul shot for six weeks in Barcelona and Madrid, and 10 days near a military community in the south of Mexico City.
La Corriente del Golfo and Perro Azul invested their own money and Delpierre accessed ICAA national funding as the minority partner and local Spanish incentives.
Ashes is the story of a Mexican woman who reunites with her mother in Spain eight years after the older woman left to build a better life for the family. Adriana Paz and Anna Díaz star in the film which is based on a novel by popular Mexican author Brenda Navarro and is premiering in Cannes Special Screenings.
“It’s a beautiful story, hard and difficult, about migration from a perspective we don’t see much,” Luna said. “My mother died when I was two, so the subject of parents not being around hits me profoundly.”
Luna had already cast Paz, with whom he acted in the 2008 comedy Rudo y Cursi, and when they finally found her co-star he and Delpierre sobbed tears of relief.
“We looked across Mexico at more than 200 girls and at the end Anna Díaz did a read-through with Adriana,” said Luna, who needed an actor who could hold her own opposite Paz, whose credits include Emilia Pérez. “I had seen Anna in La Cocina. They took it to a place I didn’t know the scene could go.”
The busy star of Disney’s Andor was intrigued by directing a story of a shifting geopolitical reality. “This story looks at the possibility of Mexican and Spanish societies to rebuild their narrative,” he said. “During the Trump presidency, Spain has become the gateway for Latin Americans into Europe and the safest option for those who have to run away.”
Luna is considering self-distributing the film in Mexico through La Corriente del Golfo but said he is open to partnering with other parties. Avalon will distribute in Spain and Luxbox is handling sales.
Ashes follows Luna’s 2007 doc JC Chavez and biography Cesar Chavez from 2017. His first narrative feature, Mr Pig, screened at Sundance in 2016. He is now working on a script that he plans to direct.
Following its theatrical run the film will debut in 2027 on Netflix in Spanish-speaking territories, including Latin America, Spain and Portugal.
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