Queer Male Friendship Examined In Keen New Indie ‘Rent Free’

Rent Free, the second feature from Austin-based writer-director Fernando Andrés, is world premiering at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. The film is a refreshingly candid exploration of queer male friendship.

Ben (Jacob Roberts) and Jordan (David Treviño) are Gen Z BFFs who, after a wackadoodle incident and eviction, decide to put a lunatic plan in motion to save money so they can move from Austin to New York—they will stay with various friends, rent free, for the next year and then, use their savings to make the big move.

This film is hilarious, idiosyncratic, sexually-charged and quite compelling. And it’s casual and frank depiction of bisexuality feels both fresh and authentic.

Roberts is a queer LA-based filmmaker and actor who recently graduate from Harvard College where he wrote multiple musical comedies for the Hasty Pudding Theatricals and won the Jonathan Levy Award for the most promising actor at the university. His short film ,HALF, was awarded the Outfest’s Colin Higgins Youth Filmmaker Award and Austin Film Festival’s Blackmagic Collective Emerging Filmmaker Award. This is his first feature as both actor and producer.

Treviño is a 2020 graduate of Texas A&M whose credits include the HBO Max Pa’lante short The Son Who Can’t Pay Trumpet, Storage Locker and the upcoming film, The Weedhacker Massacre. Rent Free marks Treviño’s feature acting debut.

The film will be playing Tribeca June 7-16. For tickets visit: https://tribecafilm.com/films/rent-free-2024

Awards Daily spoke with both actors on the day of the film’s world premiere.