Lisandro Alonso
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Lisandro Alonso | |
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| Born | Script error: No such module "person date". Buenos Aires, Argentina |
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| Alma mater | Universidad del Cine |
| OccupationTemplate:Pluralize from text | Director, screenwriter, producer, editor |
| Years active | 2001–present |
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Lisandro Alonso (born 2 June 1975) is an Argentine filmmake. Recognised as a leading figure in slow cinema and the New Argentine Cinema movement, he is known for his minimalist, observational films that follow solitary figures moving through remote landscapes, blending elements of documentary and fiction.[1]
All seven of his feature films have premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, and his 2014 film Jauja won the FIPRESCI Prize in the Un Certain Regard section.[2]
Early life
Alonso was born on 2 June 1975 in Buenos Aires.[2] He studied filmmaking for three years at the Universidad del Cine in Buenos Aires, where he trained in sound design and directing.[2] While a student, he co-directed the four-minute short film Dos en la vereda (1995) with Catriel Vildosola, a naturalistic sketch of two boys drinking and talking on a sidewalk that presaged his later interest in non-professional actors and observational filmmaking.[1] After graduating, Alonso worked as an assistant director and sound designer on various productions until 2000 to finance his own filmmaking.[2]
Career
Early films: the "Lonely Men Trilogy" (2001–2006)
Alonso's debut feature, La libertad (2001), was a low-budget production financed primarily with family funds.[3] Shot over nine days in the rural Pampas with a minimal crew, the film follows the daily routine of a solitary lumberjack, played by non-professional actor Misael Saavedra, a real woodcutter Alonso had encountered. It was selected for the Un Certain Regard section at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival[4] and was praised by critics as a pioneering example of slow cinema for its unadorned depiction of rural Argentine life.[5]
After founding his own production company, 4L, Alonso returned to Cannes in 2004 with Los muertos, which premiered in the Directors' Fortnight. Variety called Alonso "the poet and master" of the slow-moving minimalism of new Argentine cinema.[3] The film also screened at the Toronto International Film Festival. In 2006, he completed the informal trilogy—sometimes called the "Lonely Men Trilogy"—with Fantasma, a labyrinthine short feature set inside a cinema in Buenos Aires, which premiered in the Directors' Fortnight at Cannes.[1][2]
Liverpool and international recognition
With Liverpool (2008), Alonso shifted toward a more fictional approach, following a young sailor who returns to the remote villages of Tierra del Fuego in search of his mother. The film screened at the Toronto International Film Festival and won the Best Feature Film award at the Gijón International Film Festival, whose jury praised it as "a commitment to a radical cinema that takes risks and is seldom catered to by commercial circuits".[6]
Jauja (2014)
Alonso's 2014 film Jauja represented a significant departure, his first to employ a professional lead actor—Viggo Mortensen—and his first with a period setting, a nineteenth-century narrative spanning Denmark and Patagonia. The film competed in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival,[7] where it won the FIPRESCI Prize.[8] Following the film's success, the Film Society of Lincoln Center named Alonso its 2014 Filmmaker in Residence.[9]
Radcliffe fellowship and Eureka (2023)
After Jauja, Alonso received a fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University for the 2016–17 academic year, during which he began developing what would become his most ambitious project.[5] Through Mortensen's connections, Alonso made repeated visits to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota over several years, researching the experiences of the Lakota community there.[10]
The resulting film, Eureka (2023), is a triptych spanning centuries and continents, moving from a black-and-white western set in the Old West to a present-day drama on Pine Ridge to a sequence in the jungles of 1970s Brazil, exploring the experiences of indigenous peoples across the Americas. Featuring Mortensen, Chiara Mastroianni, and non-professional actors from the Pine Ridge community, the film was co-written with Argentine authors Martín Caparrós and Fabián Casas. It premiered in the Cannes Premiere section at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival[11] and won the Fiction Jury Prize at the Lima Film Festival.[12]
Collaboration with Albert Serra
In 2009, Alonso and Catalan filmmaker Albert Serra participated in a filmic exchange project in which each revisited a previous work using the same crew and actors. The project, titled Sinergias: Diálogo entre Albert Serra y Lisandro Alonso (2011), produced two short films: Serra's Lord Worked Wonders in Me and Alonso's Untitled (Letter to Serra), in which Alonso re-examined La libertad and employed its lead, Misael Saavedra.[13]
Style
Alonso's filmmaking is characterised by long takes, sparse or absent dialogue, ambient sound, and the use of non-professional actors drawn from the actual locations of his films. His work is frequently associated with the international slow cinema movement alongside directors such as Béla Tarr, Tsai Ming-liang, Carlos Reygadas, and Pedro Costa.[6][5] His films typically centre on solitary individuals in remote environments—a lumberjack in the Pampas, a released prisoner navigating a river in the subtropical north, a sailor returning to Tierra del Fuego—using extended observation to explore themes of isolation, labour, and the passage of time.
Alonso has consistently preferred to shoot on film rather than digitally, favouring 35 mm because, as he has explained, the physical weight of the camera encourages deliberate planning of each shot.[6] He typically writes, directs, and edits his own films, often also serving as producer through his company 4L. In interviews, he has resisted the "slow cinema" label, stating that he does not set out to make films within any particular movement, though he acknowledges the affinities critics have drawn.[14]
Filmography
Feature films
| Year | English title | Original title | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | Freedom | La libertad | |
| 2004 | Los muertos | ||
| 2006 | Fantasma | ||
| 2008 | Liverpool | ||
| 2014 | Jauja | ||
| 2023 | Eureka | ||
| 2026 | Freedom Double | La Libertad Doble | |
| TBA | The Scent of the Pitanga | O Aroma da Pitanga | Taste of Cherry remake; Post-production[15][16] |
Short films
| Year | English title | Original title | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1995 | Dos en la vereda | Co-directed with Catriel Vildosola | |
| 2011 | Untitled (Letter to Serra) | Sin título (Carta para Serra) | |
References
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- ^ a b c Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."CFP: The Films of Lisandro Alonso (Edited Volume)". H-Net. Retrieved 11 February 2026.
- ^ a b c d e Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Lisandro Alonso". Cannes Film Festival. Retrieved 11 February 2026.
- ^ a b Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Holland, Jonathan (30 April 2004). "Los Muertos". Variety. Retrieved 11 February 2026.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Festival de Cannes: Freedom". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 21 October 2009.
- ^ a b c Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Lisandro Alonso". Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University. Retrieved 11 February 2026.
- ^ a b c Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Lisandro Alonso". CCCB. Retrieved 11 February 2026.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."2014 Official Selection". Cannes. Retrieved 18 April 2014.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Festival Reports – Cannes Film Festival 2014". FIPRESCI. Archived from the original on 23 May 2014. Retrieved 23 May 2014.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."The Film Society of Lincoln Center Name Lisandro Alonso as Their Filmmaker in Residence". IndieWire. Retrieved 6 October 2014.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Interview: Lisandro Alonso on Eureka". Film Comment. 12 June 2023. Retrieved 11 February 2026.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Rizov, Vadim (24 May 2023). "Cannes 2023: Lisandro Alonso on Eureka". Filmmaker Magazine. Retrieved 25 May 2023.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Eureka". Fetch Publicity / Sovereign Films. Retrieved 11 February 2026.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Sinergias: Diálogo entre Albert Serra y Lisandro Alonso". FilmAffinity. Retrieved 11 February 2026.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Interview with Lisandro Alonso". The Disapproving Swede. 2023. Retrieved 11 February 2026.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Lavallée, Eric (8 April 2026). "Cherry on Top: Wagner Moura Begins Filming on Lisandro Alonso's 'O Aroma da Pitanga'". IONCINEMA.com. Retrieved 13 April 2026.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.onnaweb (12 May 2026). "Concluídas as filmagens de "O Aroma da Pitanga", longa de Lisandro Alonso estrelado por Wagner Moura e distribuído pela Paris Filmes". Paris Filmes (in português do Brasil). Retrieved 29 May 2026.
External links
- Lisandro Alonso at IMDbTemplate:Edit at Wikidata
- Lisandro Alonso at the Cannes Film Festival
- Lisandro Alonso at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study
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