Sueño Perro: Instalación Celuloide de Alejandro G. Iñárritu
Fondazione Prada, Milan
From September 18th, 2025 until February 26th, 2026
The Milanese institution hosts a labyrinth of film, sound, and memory. Sueño Perro: A Film Installation by Alejandro G. Iñárritu is an immersive, multi-sensory experience marking the 25th anniversary of the film that launched the Mexican director into the international spotlight in 2000. This is more than a tribute—it’s a physical and emotional journey through lost and forgotten images cut during the original edit of Amores Perros. Over 300 kilometers of 35mm film—alive, vibrant, and imperfect—are reinterpreted here as poetic material, where cinema and contemporary art collide.
Visitors navigate a softly lit pathway illuminated by analog projectors. Lost sequences, distorted sounds, scratches, and flickers of light unfold in a dreamlike sonic landscape composed as an emotional score for the eyes and ears. Iñárritu embraces the imperfect, human materiality of analog film, momentarily pushing back against a world dominated by hyper-digitalisation and artificial intelligence. But this isn’t an exercise in nostalgia: it’s about brining back to life an authentic aesthetic—grainy, warm, and flawed—that resonates deeply. The director seeks to communicate a fragile beauty, in conversation with the most radical and sensitive realms of art—those that today, across disciplines, are rediscovering texture, tactility, and narrative depth.
Adding a second dimension to the project, the first floor of the Podium hosts Mexico 2000: The Moment That Exploded, a companion installation conceived by Mexican writer Juan Villoro. The social and political landscape that shaped Amores Perros—marked by inequality, violence, love, hope, and disillusionment—comes into sharp focus through archival audio and documentary imagery. This section reconstructs the cultural moment that birthed the film.
Fondazione Prada and Iñárritu share a long creative relationship, making this the ideal setting for such a visionary return. The installation will later travel to other institutions, including LagoAlgo in Mexico City and LACMA in Los Angeles. Sueño Perro is asking us to pause—and truly see. Within the scratches of film, there is still something to admire and perhaps, something to take inspiration from.
For further information fondazioneprada.org.
