A man returns home and works through an existential crisis in Director Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s comedic-drama, Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths.
Iñárritu’s film reveals the journey of Silverio, a renowned Mexican journalist and documentary filmmaker who is compelled to return to his native country, unaware that this simple trip will force him to grapple with intimate questions about identity, success, mortality, the history of Mexico, familial bonds and what it means to be human in these peculiar times.
On November 6, after the DGA membership screening in Los Angeles, Iñárritu discussed the making of the film during a Q&A moderated by Director Rodrigo García (Raymond & Ray). He also spoke about the film in a conversation moderated by Director Bennett Miller (Foxcatcher) following the New York DGA screening on November 29.
During the Los Angeles conversation, Iñárritu spoke about creating the dream-like sequences in the film and bringing together the right people to pull it off.
“How do you shoot a shadow that is flying? It took us one year to execute it. Because it's a huge thing to say, 'How do we do this?' Technically, how do you bring the effect and achieve what is real, what is dreamy, which kind of light, what kind of location? All of this came to be a huge incredible journey for me as a Director to start and find the resources, creativity, and a great amount of collaborators who helped me get to the best of interpreting these kinds of things.”
Iñárritu’s other directorial credits include the feature films Amores Perros, 21 Grams and Biutiful. Iñárritu was nominated for both the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film and the Academy Award for “Best Director” for his 2006 feature film Babel. He took home both the DGA Award the Oscar for his 2014 film Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) and the DGA Award for his 2015 film, The Revenant. He also won the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Commercials for “Best Job” (Proctor and Gamble) in 2012.
Iñárritu has been a DGA member since 2002.
You can listen to Iñárritu’s Q&A by clicking the podcast episode embedded below. You can find more DGA podcast episodes here.