Diego Luna on Challenging How Migrants Are Viewed With ‘Ashes’: ‘We’re Not Thinking About What They Left Behind’

Between conducting a masterclass and attending an open-air screening of his fourth directorial feature, “Ashes,” Diego Luna dropped by the Variety Lounge presented by the Sarajevo Film Festival and BH Telecom to chat about his first time in the Bosnian capital.

The Mexican actor-director-producer, who broke out in Alfonso Cuaron’s “Y Tu Mama Tambien” and has gone on to star in films by Steven Spielberg, Harmony Korine and Gus Van Sant, sees festivals like Sarajevo as an opportunity to “see cinema through the perspective of people that have a different context than mine.”

Nevertheless, he finds similarities between Bosnian and Mexican audiences, while “Andor,” the Disney+ “Star Wars” spin-off series in which Luna plays the titular lead, has brought out roves of local fans dressed in their finest character merch.

Luna, who is one of this year’s recipients of an honorary Heart of Sarajevo Award, credits becoming a father with his move to the director’s chair and wanting “to tell my own stories.” “As an actor, you’re always there for someone else’s point of view, but when I became a father I started wanting to reflect on that journey (…) and on my own experience as a son.”

“Ashes,” which premiered at Cannes earlier this year and is adapted from a novel by Brenda Navarro, follows a young Mexican woman (Anna Diaz) beginning her new life in Spain eight years after her mother fled Mexico for Madrid. “When we talk about migrants, we’re not thinking about what they left behind,” observed Luna.

“Ashes” is about what immigrants are “carrying on their shoulders,” said Luna. “I was very lucky to work with a team that shared the necessity of making a film that pays attention to what we don’t [usually] pay attention to as citizens. The world is so unjust because we tend to be indifferent. If we were aware of everyone else’s journey, this would be a much nicer place to be in.”