Oscars: Alejandro Iñárritu's virtual reality installation 'Carne y Arena' to receive special award

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Friday that Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s virtual reality installation Carne y Arena (Virtually Present, Physically Invisible) will receive a Special Oscar statuette this year, “in recognition of a visionary and powerful experience in storytelling.”

The award will be presented to both Iñárritu and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki at the 9th annual Governors Awards on Saturday, Nov. 11. The duo has “opened for us new doors of cinematic perception,” AMPAS president John Bailey said. “Iñárritu’s multimedia art and cinema experience is a deeply emotional and physically immersive venture into the world of migrants crossing the desert of the American southwest in early dawn light. More than even a creative breakthrough in the still emerging form of virtual reality, it viscerally connects us to the hot-button political and social realities of the U.S.-Mexico border.”

Carne y Arena is currently on display at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

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