''Flesh and Sand'' () is a 2017 American short

virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a Simulation, simulated experience that employs 3D near-eye displays and pose tracking to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video gam ...

project written and directed by

Alejandro González Iñárritu Alejandro González Iñárritu (born 15 August 1963) is a Mexican filmmaker primarily known for making modern psychological drama (film genre), psychological drama films about the human condition. His most notable films include ''Amores perros ...

that plunges "viewers into the harsh life of an immigrant".Peter Aspden
"Carne y Arena: Alejandro Iñárritu’s virtual reality project"
Financial Times, August 11, 2017 It was created by Iñárritu and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki in collaboration with ILMxLAB with support from

Legendary Entertainment Legendary Entertainment, LLC (also known as Legendary Pictures or simply Legendary) is an American mass media and film production company based in Burbank, California, founded by Thomas Tull. The company has often collaborated with the major stu ...

and the Fondazione Prada in Italy. ''Flesh and Sand'' (''Carne y arena'') premiered at the

2017 Cannes Film Festival The 70th Cannes Film Festival took place from 17 to 28 May 2017, in Cannes, France. Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar was the president of the jury for the main competition. Italian actress Monica Bellucci hosted the opening and closing cerem ...

as part of the official selection and was the first virtual reality project to ever be featured at the festival. It was later featured at the Prada Foundation in

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

, attracting significant international attention for its highly innovative character as well as its strong political message. It was awarded the first Special Achievement Academy Award in over 20 years by the

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS, often pronounced ; also known as simply the Academy or the Motion Picture Academy) is a professional honorary organization in Beverly Hills, California, U.S., with the stated goal of adva ...

Synopsis

The film places the viewer among a group of migrants who are led by a coyote across the Mexican border into the U.S. until they are stopped by the border patrol. The story is based on interviews Alejandro G. Iñárritu did with Mexican and Central American refugees about their life stories. Benjamin B of ''American Cinematographer'' remarked, "The extraordinary achievements of the virtual reality process has been admired for it brings the viewer back before Lumière brothers invented public screenings with projectors... much like the Edison Kinetoscopes in the Nickelodeon parlors in the early 1900s." "Virtually present, physically invisible", Iñárritu's sub-title for ''Carne y arena'', describes how VR changes the nature of the audience.

Cast

* Hector Luis Bustamante * Omar Castaneda * Toy Lei

Reception

''Flesh and Sand'' (''Carne y arena'') has received an overwhelmingly positive response since its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on May 17, 2017. and continues to receive popularity and acclaim exhibiting at the Tlatelolco University Cultural Center in Mexico City, the Fondazione Prada in Milan, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Acclaimed for its success in creating a new experience to engage more senses and emotions than film by using VR technology, ''Carne y arena'' was described by

Germano Celant Germano Celant (11 September 1940 – 29 April 2020) was an Italian art historian, critic, and curator who coined the term "Arte Povera" (poor art) in the 1967 ''Flash Art'' piece "Appunti Per Una Guerriglia" ("Notes on a guerrilla war"), which w ...

as "a fusion of identities arises: a psychophysical unity in which, by crossing the threshold of the virtual, the human strays into the imaginary and vice versa. It is a revolution in communication in which seeing is transformed into feeling and into a physical engagement with cinema: a transition from the screen to the gaze of the human being, with a total immersion of the senses."

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Flesh And Sand 2017 films 2017 drama films American drama short films 2010s Spanish-language films Films directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu American virtual reality films Films about illegal immigration Legendary Pictures films 2010s English-language films 2010s American films