In just two weeks the first episode of the series was seen by more than three million people. This month it will release the second episode, always on X, the platform preferred by the libertarian masses.
-How did you become a libertarian?
My dad transmitted to me the conservative liberal line, perhaps a little more elitist, of society. Little by little I formed my own nuances.
-When did you meet Javier Milei?
In pandemic. There was a civil disobedience movement against the quarantine. That moved me a lot. I had just graduated as a filmmaker, I was working in advertising, and I decided to use my film tools in politics. I go to the marches, I meet people from the liberal sphere, and Carolina Barros, Milei’s co-worker, introduces him to me.
-Within that line of cinema as a political tool, does it have influences?
Yes, the directors I follow the most are Errol Morris, who has done work on Steve Bannon (Trump’s campaign manager). I am inspired by his use of music, the staging of interviews. I like Pino Solanas as that kind of guerrilla cinema and Michael Moore as the cinema of protest and denunciation.
-Curiously, all these directors are more linked to progressive ideas…
Living with the progressive climate has been difficult for me since when I was studying film. I felt kind of alone. I never lied about who I was, but I also didn’t actively militate my ideas in order to relate well.
-What does your role as Director of Audiovisual Productions of the Presidency consist of?
I oversee coverage of all the president’s activities. I direct the photographers, cameramen, and the staging of the national network. I decide how it is framed. In everything that needs the president to be filmed, I am there.
-What do you think of the journalistic coverage of the management?
There is a lot that is very bad, malicious, that is guided by a lack of guidelines. There are very few objective analysts.
-Javier Milei is repeatedly harsh with journalism…
Saying with journalism is wrong. It is against specific journalists who lie, distort, slander, it does not hold against journalism in general.
-But don’t you only give interviews to like-minded journalists?
It is not quite like that, he has given interviews to journalists from abroad, who are of a different line. What you don’t want is to sit with someone with whom you can’t have a sincere dialogue.
-Does the series use public funds?
No, zero. The series is a personal project that I do in my free time. It is as if I wrote a book of my memories of what I am experiencing with Javier Milei.
-The first episode shows a file job. Will you maintain that proposal in the next chapters?
The series will be all archival. It will not include new interviews.
-Because?
First, to make it more economical. Second, because I don’t want to take up the president’s time. And third, because the archive material gives it dynamism. Using what he already said in these years, a story is built. He is a good narrator of what is happening to him. The other chapters will show how his political campaigns went, for deputy in 2021 and the presidential ones in 2023.
-Isn’t it somewhat impertinent to show this approach to the hero’s path that the series proposes when, according to official data, 52% of the country is below the poverty line?
The story of how he went from zero to president is impressive, it deserves to be told no matter what happens. On the other hand, it cannot be assumed that he can fix a hundred years of decay in nine months. The poor are not from today. In this recent measurement there is the Massa factor (the Minister of Economy of the previous administration). It’s a difficult time, but he’s doing what he promised to do.
-Why did you launch the series in X?
Because the platforms set several conditions that I am not willing to grant and in networks we are the strongest of all. We have a spectacular diffusion.
-How did the networks become in the libertarian bastion?
Liberalism was not disseminated in traditional media or universities, the networks were the only place where we could be. Well, we also suffered a lot of censorship until Elon Musk came to create an environment of freedom. Elon Musk saved the Argentine election. If during the campaign we had had the censorship that existed on Twitter before, we would have been lost.
-What differentiates Milei from other representatives of the traditional right?
Milei is the combination of someone intellectually solid, an economist who discusses at a high level, with a character with impressive charisma, very difficult to find. Your image appears on the Internet and causes clicks.
-Won’t the exercise of public management wear down the disruptive image?
Maybe, the challenge is that it doesn’t happen. There are a lot of forces acting so that one becomes corseted, institutionalized, but the challenge is not to lose the original spirit.
-The film community has been critical of Milei’s measures. Belonging to that activity, how do you see the definancing of the sector?
There is no definancing.
-Aren’t the budgets of the Incaa (National Film Institute) being reduced, removing screen quotas, eliminating positions…?
It may be that allocations that came directly from the treasury are being reduced. I’m not that on top of the topic. There is a new Incaa administration that is achieving a more plural cinema and is not a war booty of the Kirchnerists.
-Should cinema always have a commercial objective?
No, but when it does not have a commercial purpose it must be worthy of what the taxpayer puts in. It has to be done with proven people. It doesn’t have to be to pay rented militancy. A lot of deceptions were hidden under the excuse that not everything has to be commercial.
-To make films, several resources and contacts are required. Don’t you think that state funds allow more voices to be expressed?
I would love to sail a pirate ship, but I can’t ask the State to finance it. The State cannot satisfy everyone’s desire. If your desire is to be a filmmaker, start earning it on your own, starting with projects.
-At the Latin American level, Argentine cinema is the one that has had the most nominations at the Oscars…
Yes, but all that was declining, it was becoming politicized, impoverished. In recent years, with the Kirchnerist policy, the budgets were no longer enough. Not only does Incaa have to work well for there to be good cinema, the entire economy has to work well. If the economy is bad, the cinema is bad.
-It seems that in an economic crisis, culture takes a backseat to priorities…
Well, it’s more important to eat than to make a movie. It’s common sense.
-But there are cultural workers, whose income depends on these activities
That is the problem when you create artificial production supported only by the subsidy and then there is no real market demand. They have to take responsibility for having produced something that was artificial.
-What is the objective of your productions? Take an ideological position?
They are to give more body and solidity to La Libertad Avanza as a political movement. For the social phenomenon to be more powerful you need books, movies, plays.
-It is part of the cultural battle that Milei mentions…
Exactly.
-Who clashes in that battle?
It is a fight over which ideas prevail in society. Those of us who are in favor of a free Argentina, with the traditional values of the West, face off against the people who want to destroy that, the socialists who hate what the West built over the centuries and want to do experiments that we do not know how they end.
-Is the cultural battle more important than winning elections?
The cultural battle is what you need to persuade person by person, mind and heart, so that later there is a solid electoral base.
-Milei’s speech makes noise on sensitive topics such as denying climate change or questioning the gender gap. Are those also libertarian axioms?
The majority agree with Milei’s positions. No one found these issues important enough to take away their vote. Many people explain well why what is proposed as climate change is not such, and that the gender gap is not like that, and that, if it were so, it responds to normal market logic. There would be a gender gap then in modeling, where women earn more than men.
-These are positions that generate rejection in different sectors, including scientists.
Let them do it and it doesn’t matter. We are against progressivism, we fight the cultural battle in many areas, not just the economic one.
-In this world so exposed to visual stimuli, is Milei the president according to the society of the spectacle?
Yes, he is a viral person. We are in the attention economy, we better pay attention to what we pay attention to. Milei is the best at that. He is a person who makes you ‘click’, generates the famous audience retention. He understands networks perfectly, he doesn’t need advisors, he realizes when something is going to go viral.