Diego Luna's 'Ashes' Sells to Watermelon Pictures
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- Watermelon Pictures acquired U.S. and Canadian theatrical rights to Diego Luna's migrant drama "Ashes" ahead of its Toronto International Film Festival premiere.
- "Ashes" debuted at the Cannes Film Festival last spring, where critics singled out Anna Díaz's lead performance as 21-year-old Lucila, a Mexican woman who relocates to Spain to reunite with her mother (Adriana Paz).
- Diego Luna — who directed and co-wrote the screenplay with Abia Castillo and Diego Rabasa — told Variety the film was "deeply personal," calling anti-immigrant sentiment "based on ignorance and selfishness."
- Watermelon Pictures, founded in 2024 by brothers Badie and Hamza Ali to present more complex portraits of Palestinians and Arabs, has since broadened into edgy indie fare, distributing "The Six Billion Dollar Man" and the Oscar-nominated "The Voice of Hind Rajab."
- The deal was negotiated by Munir Atalla (Watermelon) and Jean-Benoit Henry (Luxbox), the film's worldwide sales representative.
- Netflix holds distribution rights for Latin America, Spain, and Portugal via a deal signed at Cannes, with North American release plans still to be announced.
Why it matters: For a distributor founded only last year with a narrow Arab/Palestinian mandate, landing a Diego Luna TIFF premiere signals Watermelon's pivot into broader art-house social drama — and gives a Cannes-criticism favorite its North American theatrical platform ahead of a planned release.
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