Discoveries from Costa Rica World Cinema

Abril is a sharp-tongued, exhausted social worker whose life is held together by caregiving, obligation, and a constant state of emotional triage. Recently divorced, she raises her teenage daughter Valentina in a cramped, precarious domestic rhythm that feels increasingly unsustainable. During a family therapy session, Valentina announces she wants to move in with her father Julián, whose life appears effortless by comparison. As she faces an empty house, Abril finds an unexpected spark of possibility in Gabriel, a charming bartender whose warmth offers escape from her carefully managed despair. The budding romance opens the door to a version of herself unshaped by marriage or motherhood, but her own insecurities and unresolved history with Julián threaten to derail her progress. When buried truths about the end of their marriage unexpectedly surface, Abril reaches a breaking point - collapsing under the weight of her grief, professional burnout, and growing isolation.

Parallel stories of two siblings. One follows a marine biologist searching for a mythical sea creature in Costa Rica, who perhaps has dark intentions. The other follows her shipwrecked older brother who is saved by a Costa Rican fisherman who believes he has found his new son.

In a remote village in Costa Rica, Clara, a withdrawn 40-year-old woman, experiences a sexual and mystical awakening as she begins a journey to free herself from the repressive religious and social conventions which have dominated her life.

A grieving witch escapes to a cabin alone to give birth.

In mid-19th-century Costa Rica, President Juan Rafael Mora vows to defend his nation from American filibuster and slaver William Walker, who has seized nearby Nicaragua. Flashbacks trace Mora’s rise from reformist coffee planter to national leader, modernizing his family’s plantation with fair wages and new methods. Guided by love, loss, and his cautious brother-in-law, José María Montealegre, Mora builds trade ties with British merchant William Le Lacheur. In 1856, Costa Ricans defeat Walker, but cholera devastates the land. Betrayed by Montealegre, Mora is executed—like Walker—undone by ambition and history’s cruel turns.

Clara, moves in with her family to an exclusive community. While Clara and her husband take part in a bizarre welcome dinner, their daughter Sofía is kidnapped. Clara decides to investigate on her own accord, just to realize that the truth is far more perverse than she could have ever imagined.

Raised in a repressive era where sexuality was taboo, Ana, Patricia, and Mayela found their understanding of womanhood based on unspoken rules and implicit impositions. Now, their fearless voices incarnate in a single 65-year-old woman, who revisits a kaleidoscopic life of intertwined memories, secrets, and hidden desires.

Eva a 16-year-old girl lives with her mother, her younger sister and their cat, but wants to move in with her estranged father. Clinging onto him, she tries to balance between the tenderness and sensitivity of teenage life.

Isaac, a failed actor and Skies employee, shows us the daily life of workers in an average call center, facing the boredom to get to the end of the work day.

A woman becomes embroiled in a life-or-death struggle after kidnappers spirit her away to a remote area of Costa Rica.

In 1977, the workers of the INAVE vehicle assembly company went on strike. This strike was declared legal, one of the few registered in the country. This strike was also a strike that demanded great sacrifice from the workers. It lasted more than three months, more than three months without pay and in constant struggle, until the strikers finally achieved their victory.

After years studying in Europe, Elsa returns to Costa Rica to reunite with her family. She finds her younger sister living alone in the family home, growing increasingly distant and reclusive, as if slipping into a world of her own. Their parents, meanwhile, are absorbed in their own lives. Her father drifts through a series of affairs, while her mother is immersed in republishing the erotic poems of her youth, neither fully grasping the urgency of the situation. Elsa’s return draws the three women into a confrontation with what still binds them, despite everything.

Leaf Architects unveils bats as you’ve never seen them before—tiny, furry, bright-white creatures that transform rainforest leaves into extraordinary living architectural designs. Through the eyes of biologist Bernal Rodríguez, who has dedicated decades to studying these hidden home builders, the film reveals astonishing behaviors captured on camera for the very first time: from delicate construction techniques to the vital role bats play in regenerating tropical forests. Blending breathtaking imagery with a story of passion and discovery, Leaf Architects invites audiences to witness the secret lives of bats and the wonders of nature they sustain.

What are the social climate and cultural traditions in Costa Rica which nurture "machismo" and allow the domination of women to continue in Latin America?

Faced with the end of her life, a 70-year-old woman is determined to make the most of the time she has left, by growing closer to her six-year-old granddaughter. However, an unforeseen threat puts everything she holds dear at risk, leaving her to confront how far she’s truly willing to go.

Years after immigrating to the United States, Matt (Gabriel Berm) grapples with the notion of family. A call from his sister, Callie (Callie Morken), becomes the catalyst for a realization: he learns that family transcends borders and manifests in varied forms. The deepest connections endure physical separation, teaching Matt that what truly matters is the unbreakable bond they share, echoing louder than any distance.

For her entire professional life, renowned ecologist Nalini Nadkarni pioneered climbing techniques to study "what grows back” after an ecological disturbance in the rainforest canopy. Now, after surviving a life-threatening fall from a tree, she must turn her research question onto herself in order to understand the effects of disturbance and recovery throughout her life.

"Delirio" tells the story of Masha, an 11-year-old girl. Who suddenly moves along with her mother Elisa, to the house of her grandmother Dinia, who is beginning to lose her memory. The coexistence between these three women triggers a delusion around the presence of a man inside the house that nobody sees.

Maynor, a 31-year-old man, wakes up in the middle of the night with excruciating pain in his groin. Looking for a solution he will find himself in a horrifying situation; a bloody cup and a spectacular revelation. After being revived by his girlfriend Mabel, Maynor will have to resolve emotional, virile conflicts and the consequences of his actions.

Recently divorced, 72-year-old Violeta lives alone in her childhood house, tending to her lush tropical garden and making plans to turn her property into a boarding house. When she discovers the bank is about to take away her house, she breaks all the rules to hold onto her home and her freedom.

Selva, thirteen years old, discovers that when we die we just shed our skin. We can turn into wolves, goats, shadows, or anything as long as your imagination allows it.

What motivates a cock-fighter to fight a rooster he loves? In Costa Rica, cockfighting is considered a crime and has been banned for 99 years. A large part of society rejects this tradition and those who practice it, but is it fair to morally judge a cock-fighter as a criminal? We will get to know the other side of the coin through the gaze of the cock-fighter.

Women of the Mangrove is the story of the Mudecoop Cooperative. Manzanillo is a small fishing town on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica that struggles with poverty and government neglect. In response to this adversity, the women of Manzanillo joined forces to found the Mudecop cooperative.

In the eve of the 30th anniversary of the triumph of Nicaragua's revolution a long forgotten Sandinista commander appears: Paco Jarquin. Contrary to the most of his former FSLN colleagues, he prefer to deny his glorious past to live anonymously in the neighbor Costa Rica as a dance teacher.

A young girl is contacted by a photographer through social networks, who offers her the possibility of some free photographs that she needs to boost her modeling career, however, she finds herself in an apparent situation of danger but despite this and in view of the possibility of helping one of her best friends who is missing, she decides to confront the possible attacker but discovers a tremendous secret that could really end her life.

Paul is obsessed with his neighbor across the street, "Elena." Every day he watches her through the window, while "Elena" deals with her abusive partner.

Isa has more than enough on her plate with two children and the household, which she manages on her own. When her husband persists with his wish for a third child, she realizes that something must change.

One hundred years of the cinematic memory of a small country told through motion graphics. A brief tour of previously unseen images and forgotten fragments of Costa Rican cinema, which, amid state efforts and industrial ambitions, prevailed throughout the 20th century.

In a dystopian society, a grandmother wants to spend more time with her granddaughter, but a series of eventualities mean that what seemed like a perfect afternoon is not.

An experimental film that weaves the intimate thoughts of one woman (Ikwé) with the teachings of her grandmother, the Moon, creating a surreal narrative experience that communicates the power of thought and personal reflection.

This film was originally made for the International Conference on Human Settlements (HABITAT) which was held in Vancouver, Canada. Taking as an example the production and marketing of bananas and the prevailing conditions in the world market - dominated by the virtual monopoly of three multinational companies -, it is shown how as a result of this monopolistic domination, the Costa Rican State has stopped receiving equitable taxes for what that, in the end, the housing and public services offered by the country are characterized as those of an underdeveloped society. The attempt made since 1974 by a group of banana-producing countries, aimed at improving sales prices to multinationals and raising taxes; The resulting “banana war” are examples of the enormous efforts that small banana countries have to make to achieve greater justice in the prevailing market conditions.

Biopic about the songwriter Luis Enrique Mejía Godoy

Tokyo work culture's most compelling and complex protagonist; the Salaryman. A nameless, voiceless, over-worked and under-valued cog in the labour pool, expected to compromise home and social lives. Late nights and intense drinking sessions leave many of them passed out in the city streets. This slick, incisive documentary raises questions around the ethics of our global working practices in a capitalist society.

History, work, sex, cinema, death and my older brother. An essay on what swimming pools mean in culture and the collective memories we have about them. Inspired by Ed Ruscha's swimming pool photographs.

A 2017 animated film directed by Julian Gallese. The film screened at Ann Arbor Film Festival in 2018.

In 2018, the Nicaraguan police brutally repressed anti-government protests organised by high school students. K., a 17-year-old girl who was arrested, recounts the horrors of her time in jail.

Childhood memories resurface through the heat, the sounds, and the overwhelming nostalgia of coming home to the City of Mangoes.

Isolina is a beautiful woman who attracts Sabaneros. She has a kind of amulet that heals the men of the solitudes in the extensive Guanacaste pampas. Pretended by two gallants, one of them will be the one who will captivate her ...

Deep in an overgrown jungle of abandoned concrete ruins, a young woman awakens with no memory and no way out. When she finds and protects a helpless baby, time begins to warp—the child rapidly grows into a man, turning their bond into something unsettling and dangerous. As the jungle reveals traces of other women and hidden threats, she must decide whether to keep nurturing what she saved or destroy the cycle to survive.

On the day of his wife's funeral, an absent father will come to realize how hard will it be to raise his kids alone.

A young and dedicated nurse is trying to avoid the pain left by her dear cousin's suicide.

Young woman just-arrived in the big city makes friends with two middle-aged couples.

short Costa Rican drama

Golden Eyes is a passion project that seeks to reveal the secret life of an endangered Tree Frog species, that not long ago was believed to be extinct. With its distribution limited to Costa Rica and a Western Panama, Agalycnnis annae Golden-Eyed Tree Frog, is highly endangered. This species conservation is directly related human action to protect its habitat. This happens because the little corners this species historically inhabited are the same where humans have developed as cities in Costa Rica’s Central Valley.

An altar boy and a gardener decide to break a long and painful silence by denouncing the Catholic priest who abused them as minors. This unprecedented incident in Costa Rica causes the priest to flee, becoming a fugitive from the law and Interpol. The young people unite to find him. Will justice be served this time?

Domingo’s house in the Costa Rican mountains is about to be expropriated for the construction of a highway. But his land hides a secret: the ghost of his deceased wife visits him within the mist. Domingo is sure he will never give up his land, even if that means resorting to violence.

A young woman responds to her grandmother's call for help, but when she arrives at her house, everything seems to be normal.

A short Costa Rican film

Compilation of 18 animated short films made by Spanish-speaking artists from around the world for the Filmoteca Maldita Short Film Festival. This collection contains very diverse works, both in technical and thematic aspects, although they all share a genuine spirit of dedication and creativity.

13-year-old Laura feels adrift in her newly stitched-together family. Just as the forests and endless palm plantations begin to feel like home, she uncovers a lurking secret that threatens the women she holds close.

When humanity evacuates the planet because of the imminent collision with an asteroid, Manuel is set apart and left behind. Now he will have to survive an automated last resort mission to save the Earth. It’s the only option to reunite with his brother.

El Fin is comedy about the end of the world. Depressed by the recent death of his parents and losing his job, Nico; an ordinary 26 year old, decides to take refuge in his house for six months. Until that feared day when the media announces the end of the world is soon coming, caused by a gigantic meteorite.

Lorna is a young woman from a low-income background who loses her job and her home when millionaire Frederick Velasquez makes a corrupt deal with Mayor Maria Fonseca. Now with no legal way to get her home back, she must move heaven and earth to recover what she has lost.