Mexican actor and director Diego Luna confronts what he describes as open hostility toward migrants in his new film, Ceniza en la boca. He says some people now wear that hostility like a badge. The film challenges the coldness and rejection migrants face every day.
The film tells the story of a Mexican woman who moves to Spain, following her mother’s path in search of a place to belong. In adapting Brenda Navarro’s novel, Luna skips the journey itself and focuses on the fractures migration leaves behind, especially within families. The story follows a young Mexican woman who travels to Madrid to reunite with her mother, who has lived and worked there without legal status for eight years. Luna puts it plainly: “Nobody leaves everything behind on a whim.” He wants the debate to move beyond policy and toward migrants’ lives and the people they encounter. The film also highlights migrants’ vulnerability through the mother’s precarious work and legal circumstances. Ceniza en la boca received the Premio Agenda 2030 Euskadi Basque Country at the San Sebastián Festival for its nuanced portrayal of migration, including its social and political dimensions and its effects on the economy and gender.
Luna points to Donald Trump’s migration policies as a clear example of growing ignorance. He calls them “brutal persecution” and says hostility also surfaces in everyday acts of exclusion. For Luna, the issue is political, but it also reaches into personal and cultural life. He believes the response starts with those who welcome newcomers, or choose not to. “If we put ourselves in the other’s shoes, that discomfort and fear could become generosity, openness, or at least respect,” he says. He wants people to act instead of repeating slogans. Noticias de Navarra reports that Luna stresses how the modern world exists because of migration and that no place can be understood outside this process. He describes the film as both political and educational.
Luna believes cinema can build empathy: films like Ceniza en la boca let audiences step into someone else’s life and may cut through the numbness surrounding migration debates. He says independent cinema needs more support because it tells stories that big studios ignore or water down. Luna’s appearance on La Revuelta with David Broncano went beyond promotion: he called for a more engaged, compassionate public. Spanish and Latin American media note that the film focuses on what follows migration, from separation and alienation within families to bureaucracy and unstable work.
Europe, and Spain in particular, have become basic destinations for Latin American migrants seeking safety and a future. Luna’s film arrives at a tense moment: as anti-migrant feeling rises and policies shift, Europe’s image as a “safe harbor” faces pressure. Luna’s message is clear: host societies have a responsibility. His words raise broader questions about identity and belonging, alongside solidarity, issues that have surfaced in other public disputes, including the recent family rift involving Spanish celebrities.
Luna offers no simple answers or sentimental comfort. Instead, he asks audiences to face their own part in shaping migrants’ experiences through policy and the culture of daily life. Ceniza en la boca pushes back against the normalization of hostility and asks viewers to reconsider what it means to receive and include newcomers.
