For almost three thousand years, the Odyssey has been understood as the great tale of return. A hero who, after playing a decisive role in the Greek victory over Troy —thanks to his cunning and the deception of the horse that allowed the city to be conquered— sets out on the journey back to Ithaca and crosses impossible seas to reclaim his kingdom and reunite with Penelope. But Christopher Nolan proposes a different reading of Homer’s poem: one in which Odysseus’s true journey does not end when he sets foot in his homeland, but when he understands the human cost of the war he won and the debt he owes to those who could not return.

That guy who became known, along with Gael García Bernal and Maribel Verdú, in Y tu mamá también (2001), Diego Luna (Toluca de Lerdo, 1979), has just presented his fifth feature as a director, Ceniza en la boca, at the Cannes festival. This adaptation of the novel of the same name by his compatriot Brenda Navarro (published by Sexto Piso), follows the steps of a Mexican teenager, Lucila (Anna Díaz), who migrates to Madrid and then to Barcelona, and synthesizes Luna’s commitment to the fight against racism, classism, and violence, which, as early as 1994, was expressed through the indigenous insurgents of Chiapas.