The director who has won all major film awards, including five Oscars for best director, best film, or best original screenplay, was in Bilbao yesterday to present his latest work. The filmmaker, known for movies such as 21 gramos, The Revenant, Babel, Birdman, Biutiful, and Amores perros, engaged in a conversation with the public at the BBK Hall.

A young tourist couple, likely Americans, inquired in English to a local passerby about the long queue of people patiently waiting in the rain for access to the Gran Vía hall. They probably suspected the interest was due to a typical Bilbao activity, but it was for the director's latest project, Carne y Arena.

The 62-year-old Mexican filmmaker arrived with the unmistakable appearance of a European intellectual, featuring a gray beard, disheveled hair, and a comfortable yet elegant black trousers and t-shirt ensemble with an unstructured jacket. He was accompanied by his wife, a councilor from the Bilbao City Council, the director of BBK Social Work, and the director of Equality and Coexistence for the council.

In the atrium of the BBK Hall, a woman with a doctorate in Philosophy and Letters from the University of California and a journalist specializing in migration, along with a Mexican filmmaker and photographer residing in Euskadi and an expert in non-fiction cinema, conversed with the director about his immersive virtual reality work Carne y Arena. This audiovisual is exhibited at EITB's Studio 5 in Bilbao and recreates the testimonies of migrants and refugees at the Mexico-United States border. Physical and symbolic borders, and the dignity of individuals, were central themes of the discussion.

Also present in the Bilbao hall were the director of the Carne y Arena exhibition, members of the ZAS anti-rumor network, and a municipal technician. The consul of Colombia in Bilbao with his family, a renowned surfer, and a multidisciplinary artist, among other personalities, attended the discussion. The director's next film will feature several well-known actors.