‘CARNE y ARENA’ First Details: Alejandro G. Iñárritu Teases Cannes VR Installation With Emmanuel Lubezki
Academy Award winners Alejandro González Iñárritu and Emmanuel Lubezki have teamed up once again to create the experimental virtual reality installation “CARNE y ARENA (Virtually present, Physically invisible).” The six and half minute solo experience is the first virtual reality project to be chosen for the Official Selection of the Cannes Film Festival, where it will premiere next month ahead of its official opening at the Fondazione Prada in Milan in June.
The film explores the human conditions of immigrants and refugees. Here is the official description of the project: Based on true accounts, the superficial lines between subject and bystander are blurred and bound together, allowing individuals to walk in a vast space and thoroughly live a fragment of the refugees’ personal journeys. “CARNE y ARENA” employs the highest, never-before-used virtual technology to create a large, multi-narrative light space with human characters.
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“During the past four years in which this project has been growing in my mind, I had the privilege of meeting and interviewing many Mexican and Central American refugees,” Iñárritu said in a statement. “Their life stories haunted me, so I invited some of them to collaborate with me in the project.”
The filmmaker added, “My intention was to experiment with VR technology to explore the human condition in an attempt to break the dictatorship of the frame—within which things are just observed—and claim the space to allow the visitor to go through a direct experience walking in the immigrants’ feet, under their skin, and into their hearts.”
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“CARNE y ARENA” is the latest collaboration between Iñárritu and Lubezki, the duo behind the critically acclaimed, Oscar winning films “Birdman” and “The Revenant.” They created the film alongside producer Mary Parent and Lucasfilm’s ILMxLAB. The project was produced and financed by Legendary Entertainment and Fondazione Prada. The extensive full version of the film will be showing at Milan’s Fondazione Prada from June through December. 
Check out the poster below.
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