Mexican actor-director Diego Luna has described migration, the subject matter he addresses in his fourth directorial outing Ashes, as “the most complicated phenomenon we have in front of us [humankind]”.
He was taking part in an on-stage masterclass at the Sarajevo International Film Festival, where he is receiving an honorary award and Ashes is screening, following its world premiere in Cannes Special Presentations in May.
Ashes tells the story of a Mexican woman who reunites with her mother in Spain eight years after the mother 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. Luxbox reps sales, and Netflix has acquired Spanish-speaking territories.
“It [migration] somehow connects and touches every other problem, every other complexity we go through,” he said, “and it doesn’t matter where you are standing in the world, you’re witnessing someone else coming out of a place that is rejecting [them] and hoping to get to a place where they are received.”
Luna was born in Mexico and is based between Mexico and Spain. He lamented the difficulties Mexico faces from sharing a border with the US,, with huge numbers of Mexicans who have long-settled in the US facing deportation. “This politics of Donald Trump is trying to get rid of that part [Mexican influence] of US history.”
He drew on a quote first made famous by Mexican former president Porfirio Diaz: “So far from God, and so fucking close to the States.”
“We have to fight indifference,” Luna continued. “It’s incredible what we allow to happen in front of our eyes, or what we decide to block or not to see. But to me, in those stories is where you find hope in the resilience of communities still fighting, still going, still moving. For me, it is how a very bitter 46-year-old can tell you a story of hope.”
Luna previously directed 2007 documentary J.C. Chávez, 2010’s San Sebastian award winner Abel and 2016 Sundance premiere Mr Pig. His acting credits span Alfonso Cuarón’s Y Tu Mamá También and Disney+’s Andor. The origins of his career were in the theatre, as a child watching his father working as a set designer, and he has continued to star in Mexican plays.
“I want to do a film about theatre,” he told the audience/ “What keeps me sane, what I think rescues all actors from the craziness of movies and what movies expose us to, is theatre…I don’t invest in shrinks or medicine, I do theatre.”
Sarajevo runs until August 21.
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