Argentine master Lisandro Alonso teased his next feature at Space Not Time, a Los Angeles retrospective of his work. Speaking after a 35mm screening of the 2001 debut feature La Libertad, Alonso told James Benning his plans to revisit that film’s lead subject, Misael, this November, almost 25 years after the original shoot.
The formal constraints of both films will be identical: he plans to return to an eight-person crew and shoot only 54 cans of 35mm film. Alonso’s most recent project, the Cannes-premiering Eureka, was his first experience shooting digitally, and he admitted during the Q&A that he prefers how celluloid makes him organize projects.
It’s equally essential news that Alonso likes the idea of this being his last film: just as La Libertad is bookended by images of Misael’s face around a fire, Alonso’s film career looks to be bookended with these two day-in-the-life studies.
In La Libertad we watch Misael live in isolation in rural Argentina as he chops down trees which he then sells for use as “posts” (what kind of posts is never specified). Alonso mentioned he is still in touch with Misael, who used the film as an opportunity to move out of isolation, and he now lives with a girlfriend and his mother, continuing to work day-labor jobs to get by. Alonso’s La Libertad follow-up should have plenty of new elements to explore.
The Film Stage reached out to Lisandro Alonso for comment.
