Following completion of principal photography on '' Babel '' , director Alejandro González Iñárritu and screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga had a falling-out . The dispute centered on the authorship of their previous film , '' 21 Grams '' . Arriaga argued that cinema is a collaborative medium , and that both he and González Iñárritu are thus the authors of the films they have worked on together . González Iñárritu claimed sole credit as the '' auteur '' of those same films , minimizing Arriaga 's contribution to the pictures . Following this dispute , González Iñárritu banned Arriaga from attending the 2006 Cannes Film Festival screening of '' Babel '' , an act for which the director was criticized
2006 Cannes Film Festival
2006 Cannes Film Festival
Babel (film)