Ashes Review (TIFF 2026)
Diego Luna’s newest film, Ashes, or Ceniza en la boca, is an adaptation of the book of the same name, written by Brenda Navarro. It follows the journey of Lucila (Anna Díaz) as she moves from Mexico to Spain with her brother, to go live with their mother who left them when they were young.
Ashes is really about the immigrant experience, how it feels to uproot your life and go somewhere else in search of a better life, why do you go, what do you leave behind, what changes and what stays the same. From that perspective is where this film hits close to my experiences too, as someone who left home behind in search of something different, in search of something better than what I had.
And does life really get better when you make a change like this? Ashes surmises that ultimately wherever you go, there is no escape to the struggle. There’s nothing waiting for you that will magically make your life better, that’s something that you will have to eventually figure out on your own.
Diego Luna directs this film astonishingly well, paired with cinematographer Damián García (with whom he worked on another film he directed, Mr. Pig, as well as Andor). Almost all of the film’s runtime is from the perspective of Lucila, and the framing of almost every shot is claustrophobic to simulate the feeling of living the way she does – both from an emotional perspective but also from the real way she was living, whether that be in a small house with her mother in Madrid where she shares a room with her brother, or in the small apartment she shares with 5 other women in Barcelona where space is nonexistent.
Not all of it is about misery though, there’s moments of community where Lucila finds herself amongst familiar people, people going through similar struggles, and what those struggles are like. Anna Díaz portrays her perfectly with an underlying sadness across almost every moment – even when she finally goes back to Mexico. The only time this veil of sadness is gone is when she spends time with her younger brother Diego (portrayed by Sergio Bautista) or during certain moments of community with her peers.
The movie speaks a lot to the immigration experience and doesn’t shy away from any of the dark parts, including the discrimination one might face working there. The emotional high point is when we find out exactly why the film is titled Ashes, which wasn’t at all what I was expecting but it really moved me.
It’s definitely a film worth watching, and I’m glad I got to catch it at TIFF. At our screening, Diego Luna announced that it got picked up for North American distribution by Watermelon Pictures, to be released early next year.
