Works
CARNE y ARENA
A groundbreaking and immersive virtual reality experience
Experience
Mixed Arts
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From
Release year: 2017
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What we did
Co-production
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Partners
Legendary Entertainment
Emerson Collective
Fondazione Prada
By Alejandro G. Iñárritu
CARNE y ARENA (Virtually present, Physically invisible) explores the human condition of immigrants and refugees. 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's personal journeys.
Photo: ©Legendary / Chachi Ramirez, CARNE y ARENA, 2017
About
the experience
An immersive installation that reunites frequent collaborators Iñárritu and Emmanuel Lubezki alongside producer Mary Parent and ILMxLAB, CARNE y ARENA is a twenty-minute solo journey centered around a virtual reality sequence experienced by three concurrent visitors in separate rooms that employs state-of-the-art immersive technology to create a multi-narrative light space with human characters. CARNE y ARENA premiered at the 70th Cannes Film Festival as the first virtual reality project to be featured in the festival's history. It was presented for the first time in its extensive full version at Fondazione Prada in Milan.
"During the making of this project, I had the privilege of meeting and interviewing many Mexican and Central American refugees," Iñárritu said. "Their life stories haunted me, so I invited some of them to collaborate with me on the project. 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."
Five-time Academy Award-winning director Alejandro G. Iñárritu was presented a special Oscar® in 2017 for CARNE y ARENA, recognized by the Academy as an exceptional storytelling experience.
A sneak preview
Watch the trailer ↗
Watch the trailer ↗
Gallery
Partners
Legendary Entertainment is a leading media company with film (Legendary Pictures), television and digital (Legendary Television and Digital Media) and comics (Legendary Comics) divisions dedicated to owning, producing and delivering content to worldwide audiences. Legendary has built a library of marquee media properties and has established itself as a trusted brand which consistently delivers high-quality, commercial entertainment including some of the world's most popular intellectual property. In aggregate, Legendary Pictures-associated productions have realized grosses of more than $17 billion worldwide at the box office.
Emerson Collective deploys a wide range of tools — from impact investing to philanthropy to advocacy — in pursuit of a more equal and just America. They focus on creating systemic change in education, immigration, climate, and cancer research and treatment.
Fondazione Prada is a cultural institution created in Milan (Italy) by Miuccia Prada and Patrizio Bertelli in 1995. With the aim of experimenting new grounds of confrontation on visual languages, it has presented shows by international artists, philosophy and scientific projects, research exhibitions and performing arts events. Since 2003, its interest towards media and technology–related languages has manifested in partnerships with international cinema institutions such as the Tribeca Film Festival and the Venice Film Festival; in art installations by Steve McQueen, Tobias Rehberger and Francesco Vezzoli; in special collaborations with international film directors like Pedro Almodóvar, Wes Anderson, Danny Boyle and Alejandro González Iñárritu; and in a permanent project conceived by Jean-Luc Godard for its Milan venue.