Interview by Fridtjof Ryder
Portrait by Delphine Pincet

FR What was your thought process when deciding to return to the character of Misael from La libertad?

LA  It was a good moment for me to go back to where I started, with simple ideas and small structures. I always shoot on a small scale: even if the production is big for me, it stays small. We shot this film on my family farm in the state of La Pampa with the same crew as La libertad. We were a team of between 12 and 15 people having an extremely good time, eating meat, drinking wine and shooting every day. It was an exercise in how we feel about cinema and the freedom we have in making it.

FR How did Misael feel about returning to the lead role after 25 years?

LA At first, it was a pain in the ass for me to convince him, because he doesn’t live in the area anymore. He’s 1200 kilometres from where I am in Buenos Aires and 800 kilometres from La Pampa. But he understood that it was going to be good for all of us to go back and see and hug each other again. Day by day, as we were shooting, he came to understand what the film was about. It’s not just about chopping wood and using a chainsaw; it’s about getting older and the responsibilities that come with ageing. Even if you choose to live far away from other people and their rules, you are connected.

FR This film feels like it’s even further stripped back stylistically than La libertad.

AR  That’s because of how I was structuring my scripts. Even if I don’t like to write a lot, it guides me towards getting loose and empowering to the crew to decide what they need. La libertad doble is a mix of realism and fiction. Fiction is a word that I don’t get along with very well. I am just trying to process my experience, to see situations that I can absorb into my work so I can be a more open person. I concentrate best when I focus on one human being. Probably because I’m fifty now and try to be more concise and more objective and find what really matters for the character and for me as a filmmaker.

FR  Your films often observe daily processes in detail, from killing animals to the process of feeding oneself. What draws you to observing these rhythms?

AR By observing the environment around the main character, I can know much more than by being told by people who are in the frame. I think it’s the only method I have of observing and absorbing reality: that’s the rhythm I have, I can’t make it faster. I give myself and the audience the chance to pick what elements they need to create this film together, to put yourself in the body of the characters and see how they react to this moment in this place. It shows you so many things in terms of freedom or choices, regarding health, education, politics, economy, etc. If you can be a witness to what is happening in front of your eyes, I think you build your own film out of what is there.

FR In your film Fantasma (2006), Argentino Vargas, the star of your
previous film Los muertos (2004), is literally lost in a cinema, trying to find the screening of his own film. It seems like you’re often dealing with the hauntological nature of cinema.

LA At that time, I was really moved by what a film should be. Cinema was to be stripped back to just images and sound, and your job as a director was to rearrange the elements, observe and tease out the connections. Fantasma is like a comedy to me, with Argentino travelling all the way to Buenos Aires and walking around the cultural institution of Teatro San Martín, seeing posters of himself starring and being confused by it. I was also influenced by Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003) by Tsai Ming-liang, and Last Days (2005) by Gus Van Sant. They felt like ghosts in your brain, like you were far away on drugs, being mystified by cinema itself. It was a kind of cinema that you heard and smelt, but there was no place for me to watch those kinds of films in Argentina.

FR Why was it important to make something smaller?

LA I had been working on big international productions, first on Jauja (2014) and then with Eureka (2023). In Eureka, I was talking about Indigenous people internationally and how cinema treats them. Those films I felt more heavily on my back, so I needed to feel light and walk free, to shoot an almost silent film.

FR Do you feel like an Argentine filmmaker? You’re observing so widely, across so many different spaces; it feels like you have a license to make a film about anywhere, almost like a journalist. Do you feel a sense of “I need to come home?”

LA I was reading an interview with an Argentine filmmaker who was living in Europe and shot his short film in Mexico. He said that from now on, especially because of what is happening in Argentina, we should expand beyond flags and not think, “This is my neighbourhood, and this is my family, and this is my problem.” I think it’s more global nowadays. Argentine cinema, for me, is a bag of different colours, so you can find many different ways to make films. There is a trend in contemporary cinema to find an issue, such as a dictatorship or a famous historical figure, and then to make a film about it. I don’t need to feel guided unless I want to, unless I decide to watch something for entertainment. If I am looking for entertainment, I would rather go to the bar and drink some beers with friends. It’s much more entertaining to me than watching shitty films.

FR How much do you care about the reception of your films?

LA The only concern I have is closing the doors on letting me make another film. Just open the window, so I can have some light. The films I make need time to be understood. When you connect to a body of work, you don’t have to love a specific film, but rather the curiosity, issues, and ideas a person has. I prefer this to making lots of different films for the sake of the box office.

FR Why films as opposed to making music, writing, painting, etc.?

 LA I'd have loved to be a painter, but I don’t have the talent. I studied painting for a year at university during Covid-19. At the end, I looked at myself and said, “No, Lisandro, you’re not even going to be a bad one.” So... back to cinema. I think I make films because it is the place where I feel love. Outside of my family, I have never felt that level of love in any other activity. .