Still: Double Freedom - Lisandro Alonso

In his new feature film, selected for Quinzaine 2026, Argentinian director Lisandro Alonso returns to the subject of his debut work, La Libertad, made 25 years ago, and which heralded his arrival as an auteur of precocious talent.

Dutch Ilse Hughan didn’t work with Lisandro on his audacious debut, but she collaborated with him as Artistic Producer on all of his subsequent films. Double Freedom is their sixth work together. 

In the film we once again meet woodcutter Misael, who lives alone happily in the woods - but his peace is interrupted when he is forced to care of his older sister.  

Double Freedom is produced by Fernando Buscuñan of Chile-based Planta and London-based Chilean producer Augusto Matte (Deptford Film), alongside director Alonso, who runs the production house 4L. It is co-produced by Les Films Fauves, The Match Factory, Cimarrón, Pulpa Film and Carte Blanche. Sales are handled by Luxbox.

Without revealing any of the core plot, the story has a strong undertow both for Hughan and Lisandro, who are personal care workers within their respective personal lives; also for DOP Cobi Migliora who himself looks after an ageing parent. Hughan tells SEE NL it was she who suggested the theme of care for the new collaboration. She also suggested that on this film they must take an altogether simpler, more Epicurean approach. 

Production on their previous film, Eureka, made during Covid, was cumbersome and unwieldy, and with too many personnel involved, she says. “It was a monster production, really long and complicated. It was the pandemic, there were many co-producers shooting in three countries; Spain, Mexico and North America. And there were different crews - always the key people, but still different.”

“When we finished, I said to Lisandro, for the next film, why don't we go back to the beginning? Why don't we go full circle? Less is more.” 

Director Alonso agreed to Hughan’s suggestion in a heartbeat. Likewise, woodcutter Misael was equally delighted to reprise the role he first played a quarter of a century before. “I liked a lot the idea of making a film again with this same guy,” says Hughan. “When you see him cutting wood, it's like a ballet. It's like a dance. And over the years, he got even better.”

This time the production was intimate, made with a small crew, many of whom had worked on Alonso’s previous films, including DoP Migliora who lensed La Libertad all those years before. “So it was a reunion. It was wonderful.” 

Even funding went relatively smoothly, with support gained from the Berlinale World Cinema Fund. “It all went very quickly, very coherently, very natural,” says Hughan. “And it was joyful, for sure. We enjoyed every second.” 

Hughan further stresses how Alonso’s filmmaking has matured and even improved over the past 25 years, which is astonishing given the high quality of his debut feature, six films ago. He has learned to channel his insecurities, she notes, which in turn has provoked a greater and more profound sense of emotional truth in his work.  

“He's now used to this insecurity,” she says. “It's now a normal thing for him, and it doesn't stop him anymore. Before it was a sort of blockage and I had to talk to him for a long time, saying it will be all right. Now he can do it on his own, and he knows that this insecurity is part of the process.” 

Double Freedom is not the only film that Alonso and Hughan have been busy on recently. The director has also completed principal photography on a remake of Taste of Cherry, the 1997 Palme d’Or-winning film by late Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami. The new work is produced by Vania Catani of Bananeira Filmes (Brazil). Hughan is again Artistic Producer, and the film stars Brazilian actor Wagner Moura (The Secret Agent). 

And when will the film be ready? “Next year for Cannes,” replies a confident Hughan who, as ever, is setting her sights very high.

Find out more about Cannes here.