Alejandro González Iñárritu made a spirited appearance at the Venice Film Festival Thursday where he dismissed fears that audiences will be unable to correctly experience his latest film Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths when it is released on Netflix later this year.
“My generation has seen movies by great authors and when I was studying cinema, besides exhibitions and festivals, Bergman, Bunuel, Fellini, I saw all their movies on TV with terrible quality and VHS,” Iñárritu said when asked about his film streaming.
“If I had to go to the toilet I stopped the movie. So we are all forced to stop the screenings. But what remains is our ideas. A movie is a movie. It is just a means. A cathedral for cinema. It’s a place where children are born.”
The director continued to say that “you cannot go against the prevailing tide” in response to the popularity of streamers after highlighting that Bardo will still receive a limited theatrical run in Mexico and the US.
“This is something I really appreciate. Not only because I was supported and left totally free but they [Netflix] have been extremely generous in allowing people to experience this movie in a theater,” he said. “This is something especially important for me and is an exceptional gesture from Netflix to me. Because I think this is a movie that belongs to this type of experience.”
Written by González Iñárritu and Nicolás Giacobone, Bardo is billed as a nostalgic comedy set against an epic personal journey. It chronicles the story of a renowned Mexican journalist and documentary filmmaker who returns home and works through an existential crisis as he grapples with his identity, familial relationships, the folly of his memories as well as the past of his country. He seeks answers in his past to reconcile who he is in the present.
The film marks Iñárritu’s return to Mexico. The director hasn’t shot a film in his home country since 2000’s Amores Perros, starring Gael García Bernal. Iñárritu said that September 1 also marked the anniversary of the day his family first left Mexico for Los Angeles over 20 years ago.
“Mexico is for me a state of mind it is no longer just a country,” the director said. “Each country in the end is a state of mind. The stories about ourselves we have been told. But when you get far away from that place and when time adds up this state of mind dissolves and changes. And this was part of the research this movie takes care of. The interpretation of this longing.”
He added that returning to the country was like “being in a mirror” and “re-meeting a friend” who was totally different.
Bardo is also Iñárritu’s first feature film since winning the Oscar for directing The Revenant, which also had Leonardo DiCaprio take home his first Oscar for Best Actor.
Daniel Giménez Cacho, Griselda Siciliani, Ximena Lamadrid, and Iker Solano star. Mary Parent and Karla Luna Cantu are executive producers. The film is produced by Iñarritu and Stacy Perskie Kaniss.
The film will debut on December 16 following its world premiere at Venice Film Festival. Prior to landing on the streamer, it will play in movie theaters in Mexico starting on October 27 as well as select North American theaters on November 4.
Venice runs from August 31-September 10.
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