“Argentine cinema needs public policies”

As an actor, director, screenwriter and one of the most unique voices in River Plate cinema, Daniel Hendler comes to 27 nightshis new project for Netflix, with the serenity of someone who already knows the medium from different angles. In this, his second film of 2025, he not only directs but also acts. The story, loosely based on a text by Natalia Zito, addresses rare themes in local cinema: old age, desire, money and the right to make decisions when the body and life seem to reach their limit. The film, starring Marilú Marini and Hendler himself, premiered this Friday on Netflix.

The proposal, Hendler says, came directly from the producers Santiago Miter and Agustina Llambí Campbell, summoned by the platform to produce an Argentine film. “They called me to direct and act. I said yes to directing right away, but I left acting on hold. I thought that someone else might come in later, but it was too late: the character was written with me in mind. And besides, it made me want to do it, although it is alienating to direct and act at the same time,” he reveals.

Hendler tries to put into words the themes of a film that, without solemnity, investigates the bonds of adulthood, based on the story of a very autonomous woman and patron of artists, with two daughters who try to stop her from “wasting” her fortune and want to declare her insane. “There is something of me hanging around in that story,” says Hendler, who plays an expert who must determine the state of the woman’s mental health. “I only now realize that it has to do with my grandfather, with whom I had a very strong relationship. I asked him things that others would have been embarrassed about: what sex was like in old age, for example. And he answered me naturally. I suppose that curiosity is also in the film: that “The idea of looking at that stage of life without shame and with a certain fascination.”

Marini’s appearance as a co-star was, according to Hendler, one of the founding moments of the project. “She was our first choice. We tried thinking about other actresses, but everything changed too much. We always returned to her. It was a very consensual decision and ended up being a cornerstone of the process. Marilú gave the film a depth and humanity that we needed for everything to make sense.”

27 nights works with a simple but powerful idea: what happens when an older woman decides to use her money—her freedom—in a way that defies other people’s expectations. In that intimate gesture desire, love, lucidity and also social criticism intersect. “It’s true that there is something like that,” Hendler acknowledges. “She has the right to do what she wants, even to make mistakes. If a man of that age goes out with a younger woman, no one judges him. But if it’s the other way around, condemnation immediately appears. The issue of age and sexism is mixed there. It seemed important to me to show that without underlining it, just letting it appear in the actions.”

Photo: Prensa/Borja B. Hojas

The script, he explains, was a collective process. Mariano Llinás made the first adaptation of Zito’s book, and then Hendler, together with Martín Mauregui and Agustina Liendo, rewrote the material, modifying characters and situations. “It was a work in layers, as if the film was revealing itself. And with Netflix there was a lot of creative freedom. I did not feel at any time that an industrial logic was imposed. They trusted and let us do it,” he says.

Hendler and management

The experience of directing is not new for Hendler. After Norberto just late (2010) y The candidate (2016), his role as a director was consolidated. “I was about to film A loose end when I received the invitation to 27 nights. The dates overlapped a bit, but I didn’t want to miss out. I was always interested in directing: since I was studying theater I was already putting together groups, making short films and directing. What happened was that I started to make a living from acting and that took me down another path. But the direction was always there.”

His way of working, he says, is not so much based on a predetermined aesthetic but rather on a dialogue with materials. “The references are more a way of talking to the team than something that really guides me. In the end, the film finds its own language. The references end up being capricious or false, but they serve to spark the conversation. The important thing is to listen to what the images are asking for,” he explains.

At the opening of the San Sebastián Festival, where 27 nights had its world premiere, Hendler had an intense experience. “I was very nervous at first,” he admits, “but it was exciting. When you see that people stay, that they listen, that they laugh at some moments, that’s a miracle. And when it was over, that hallway that was formed, the warmth of the audience, moved me a lot. It hadn’t happened to me before.”

The premiere coincides with a very difficult time for Argentine cinema, hit by the dismantling of the INCAA and the paralysis of numerous projects. Hendler does not avoid the topic. “That is the most worrying thing. The cinema, as a sector, is going to find ways to resist, because it needs to speak. But in the middle an enormous potential is destroyed, jobs are lost and damage is generated that is difficult to reverse. And furthermore, it is absurd, because it is not explained. It seems like confusion, bad advice. There is a mistaken idea that the cinema is a den of lefties, but in reality it is still a middle class environment. It makes no sense. attacking something that generates so much value, direct and indirect.”

27 nights It arrives in that context: a production for an international platform, made with the support of Netflix but with a deeply local sensibility. Hendler sees no contradiction there. “It seems perfect to me that Netflix, Amazon and all the platforms exist. The important thing is that films continue to appear, that stories continue to be told. But Argentine cinema needs its own support, public policies, because without that the machinery stops. And when that happens, it is very difficult to start again.” «

27 nights

By Daniel Hendler. With Marilú Marini, Daniel Hendler, Carla Peterson, Julieta Zylberberg and Humberto Tortonese. Available on Netflix.