Rent Free follows best friends Ben and Jordan, who, after hitting emotional and financial rock bottom, come up with a scheme to spend an entire year living “rent free” with the help of friends, family and strangers.

Best friends since childhood, Ben and Jordan are two young men living in a rapidly changing Austin, where they navigate low-paying jobs, fraught relationships, and their own emotionally codependent friendship. When they suddenly lose their apartment, they come up with a last-ditch plan to spend the rest of the year “rent free”.

They set out on a tragicomic journey across the couches, floors, and guest rooms of their friends while desperately
trying to save up enough money to leave behind a city they no longer recognize and flee for the promised land of New York City. Made with a satirical bent and an ensemble cast, Rent Free is a high-anxiety comedy about a generation on the edge, as well as a poignant exploration of male friendship and a city in flux

Director’s Statement – Fernando Andrés

RENT FREE began as a dare to myself as a filmmaker. After my first feature — an experimental drama with three actors, two locations, and no dialogue — I wanted to make a big ensemble comedy with hundreds of faces, a cross-country sprawl and plenty of talking. Inspired by my own relationship with my best friend — as well as personal financial anxieties — I wanted to use the mainstream “buddy comedy” genre to focus instead on a queer male friendship, all the while poking fun at issues of money, sexuality and the city I call home: Austin, Texas.

This film was made with an urgency we hoped would rub off on the storytelling: it was conceived in January 2023, written and prepped through the spring, shot in July and locked by December. I hesitate to write this note because, like most filmmakers, I want the film to speak for itself. It is my response to an American indie cinema that refuses to frame time-old problems like friendships and arrested development within our uniquely fucked up economic landscape.

It is my personal expression as a queer artist interested in exploring the relationships between queer men that go beyond sex and romance. It is my second feature, but in many ways feels like my first complete sentence: a film designed to invite a wide audience with a familiar genre and structure before hitting them with something new.

Rent Free is available on VOD from Cinephobia Releasing

About the Author

Bryen Dunn is a freelance journalist with a focus on travel, lifestyle, entertainment and hospitality. He has an extensive portfolio of celebrity interviews with musicians, actors and other public personalities. He enjoys discovering delicious eats, tasting spirited treats, and being mesmerized by musical beats.