Director Alejandro G. Inarritu Receives Special Oscar

BEVERLY HILLS, CA – Academy Award-winning director Alejandro G. Inarritu will be receiving another Oscar, a rare special honor for his virtual reality installation portraying the journey of border-crossing Mexican migrants, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Friday. The Academy Special Award, in the form of an Oscar statuette, will honor Inarritu's Los Angeles County Museum of Art installation "CARNE y ARENA (Virtually Present, Physically Invisible)," in recognition of its "visionary and powerful experience in storytelling."

The installation, created by Inarritu and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, "opened for us new doors of cinematic perception," Academy President John Bailey said.

Bailey called the exhibit "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," Bailey said.

The award will be presented during the Academy's ninth annual Governors Awards ceremony Nov. 11 at the Hollywood & Highland Center.

The honor marks only the 19th time the Academy has bestowed such an honor in its history. The last Special Award was in 1995, honoring director John Lasseter in recognition of the first fully computer-animated feature- length film –"Toy Story."

Inarritu won the Oscar for best director for "The Revenant." He won three Oscars for directing, writing and producing best-picture winner "Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)."

Lubezki is a three-time Oscar winner, for "The Revenant," "Birdman" and "Gravity."

City News Service and Patch staffer Emily Holland contributed to this post; Image via Shutterstock