_{Eureka by Lisandro Alonso}

The connection between Dutch producer Ilse Hughan and Argentinian director Lisandro Alonso (whose latest feature Eureka is screening as a Cannes Premiere) stretches back more than 20 years. The duo first met in Patagonia in 2001 when Hughan was a tutor at a workshop for young Latin American filmmakers.

Alonso was one of the three young Argentinian directors invited to attend with a project. By then, he had already built an international reputation. His film La Libertad (Freedom) had screened in Un Certain Regard in Cannes. “I had seen it. I loved it. And then I met him at the workshop,” Hughan says of the movie.

The young director was presenting his new project Los Muertos. He had written less than half a page and his pitch took barely a minute. Yet it was enough to convince Hughan that he was a very special talent. “We connected immediately although I didn’t speak one word of Spanish and he didn’t speak good English.”

What convinced Hughan that he was so exceptional? “First of all it was his previous film (La Libertad) which was so original and felt so authentic to me. It was so minimal, made with very little means, but he managed to tell a lot,” she remembers. “It was the same with him. He was authentic and a little bit (of an) introvert… less is more! That is what I liked. I felt this was a person who could tell stories with images and not necessarily with words.”

After the workshop, Alonso asked Hughan, “why don’t we try to produce the film together?” And they’ve been working together ever since.

When their collaboration began, Hughan had never actually produced a film. She had done almost everything else in the business, running the venerable film company Fortuna Films, which her grandfather Jean Desmet had founded in 1909. She had worked on sets and in archives and cinemas. She had been an international sales agent. So producing seemed to come easily to her. Thanks to her previous experiences, she knew “more or less what it was all about.” She told Alonso “yes, sure,” and set about finding the money for him to make his film.

By then, Hughan was living part of the time in Argentina, working for Fundacion TyPA, a cultural foundation based in Buenos Aires. Her Spanish improved - and so did Alonso’s English.

“Very naturally, Lisandro and I continued working. He takes his time and he comes up with a subject. We talk about it extensively during our get-togethers. Over long evenings and days, we go to the Pampas where his father has a farm, and where he shot La Libertad. Slowly and gradually a project is born.”

Eureka, Alonso’s new feature, is a typically oblique and poetic affair, based around Native American culture and myth, touching on time travel and featuring migrating birds with magical powers.

“This goes back eight years,” Hughan says of a project with a lengthy gestation. “We all suffered because of Covid. It is shot in three parts of the world, in Mexico, Spain and the US.”

With Eureka, Alonso took “the big step” to leave his native Argentina and make the film entirely abroad. It uses a mix of languages including English, Portuguese and the indigenous Chatino, and has a high profile cast featuring Viggo Mortensen, Chiara Mastroianni and Rafa Pitts, as well as many non-professional actors.

The project is on a bigger level than most of Alonso’s previous movies and has backing from International Film Festival Rotterdam’s Hubert Bals Fund abd the Netherlands Film Fund. Hughan, though, says she “knows her way around (the film business) better outside the Netherlands than inside, because I’ve been always working internationally.”

Other co-producers on the project include Slot Machine in France, German outfit Komplizen Film (known for Spencer, Corsage and Toni Erdmann), and Rosa Filmes. The sales agent is Le Pacte who will also handle French distribution.

Eureka is barely finished but Alonso and Hughan are already turning their attention towards another intriguing new project, a sequel to the director’s earlier success, La Libertad. This one, though, is likely to be on a much smaller scale. “We love to go to the Pampas with 12 or 15 people and shoot a film there, but always with a good idea of course!” Hughan signs off.

For a full overview on everything from the Netherlands at Cannes, click here.
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