Discoveries from Costa Rica World Cinema

The memory of the body and the underground labyrinth

Two Dominican taxi drivers plan to travel illegally to Puerto Rico in search of two high-class women they met and fell in love with.

Daniel, who spends his days in a wheelchair, discovers that immobility can be a profound journey with a lot of movement

As a result of a domestic accident, my grandmother started being monitored at home. Day and night cameras record her movements, interfering with her privacy. After some time observing, I began to notice something different with her.

In a rural Costa Rican village, José Blas—known as “El Moto”—falls in love with Cundila, the daughter of a powerful landowner. As their secret romance grows, class barriers, manipulation, and misfortune conspire against them.

Three girls are for their mother, very close and familiar and a source of constant mystery all at the same time. While trying to understand them she is pushed to explore herself deeper as a mother and as a daughter.

Banalities and trivialities become fodder for the distraction from the true value of life, as seen by our main character who struggles to reach the seed of creation.

It tells three interconnected stories: The first is from ancient times and is of a referential nature. The second is from the present time and is of an identificative nature. The third tells the story of a teenager who begins to realize that she has certain abilities to perceive the future. And it turns out she also 'foresees' the past…

Magic realism in San Pablo de León Cortes

While facing his mother’s illness, Oliver (7) clings to his aunt Paloma (26), projecting on her the fantasy of a new mother. As their bond grows, Paloma begins to develop an unwanted maternal instinct, while the birds announce an early farewell.

Dos Patrias is a lucid investigation into the Cuban reality from the personal stories of activists who confront the ruling system, and at the same time an accurate testimony of the multiple causes that converged in the social outbreak of July 11, 2021.

Victoria, Susana y Marcela are already in their 40's. They feel uncertain about ther lives and their future paths

Biopic about the songwriter Luis Enrique Mejía Godoy

Short Film for graduation project "Gringo Pinto", created by Guillermo Ramos. Tutor: John Timms and Mabel Morvillo. Veritas University in December 2009.

Gonzalo has decided to die, but before leaving he calls his son Jorge for a final movie night. There, father and son will discover the simple things they kept hidden for many years.

The film offers us the other side of the prison problem and questions the often simplistic prejudices with which we normally approach this problem.

The film presents various aspects of prostitutes' lives in Costa Rica. Several prostitutes and some "protectors" agreed to offer a confession about their lives, how they got there and what they hope for the future. Far from being a moral discourse, the documentary manages to bring us closer, in a human way, to the condition that determines the lives of prostitutes.

Keyla is a beautiful young woman trying to get over a disturbing episode from her past. Unfortunately, her step dad's visits and the usual male harassment she suffers generate something dark within her. By the time her psychologist covers her secret, it is too late.

A writer who recently lost his wife goes on a retreat where his story begins to intersect with Andrew, a shy young man who experiences the awakening from his darkest thoughts.

Carlos, a married man with two daughters, dares to reveal his true sexual identity to his family; Ale, a trans woman manages to finally reconcile with the image in the mirror and accept herself; and Jaz and Lalay, two young lovers must confront their family and society in order to get married. The three stories are intertwined with historical events to recognize the struggle of thousands of LGBTQ+ people and organizations in Costa Rica.

In 1974, the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE) began work on the Arenal hydroelectric project. As a result, two towns, Arenal and Tronadora, had to be relocated. Canto a dos pueblos is the first of three films made to record this significant event.

Andres Alfaro is an ex-agent from Intervention Special Units. After he inherites a property from his father and refuses to sell it, his daughter will be kidnapped.

Upon entering a house, Simón decides to explore it; however, he realizes that he is not as alone as he thought.

Two young women are alone at home and must rehearse for an important audition that they have in the next few days, to help each other in the process, Sofi convinces Iris to try acid, which ends in a total loss of control.

Through landscapes fueled by silence, resentment and brief moments of joy, Ale, a seventeen-year-old woman, will try to protect her two younger siblings from the seething truth, their mother has left them and is not coming back.

Gustavo is a 33-year-old psychologist who takes care of Gerardo, his father. Pedro is a 36-year-old history teacher who comes to the country to meet his family for the first time in his life. None of them are ready for what comes ahead in the next forty-eight hours.

"Palabras que Fallecerían del Silencio" is a poetic and experimental documentary that explores the current situation of second-hand bookstores in Costa Rica, through Goodlight Books and Libro Azul. At the same time, it addresses the rise of digital platforms and the connection people have with reading and with these bookstores.

Francisco Coto was born in Alajuela in July 1924. A century later, he recalls some of his photographs in the studio he founded decades ago. Photographs like those that bring to the present the eruptions of the Irazú volcano, which began in March 1963, or the visit of John F. Kennedy during that same year, allowing us to see Costa Rica's recent history through different eyes.

This film presents three possible techniques or methods that make it possible to meet the growing demand for wood without the country becoming a desert: spontaneous reforestation, carried out by the country's youth, technical and commercial plantation, and the comprehensive use of forests. . Scientists and farmers, peasants and young people express their opinions on these techniques and on the critical situation that the country is going through. The "lone witness", a tree abandoned to its fate in the middle of infertile pastures in the Puriscal area, leaves graphic testimony about the felling of trees taken to the absurd.

The story of a homeless woman who no longer wants to live on the streets so she can see her beautiful daughter again.

Only Saprissa could do it: four back-to-back titles. Get inside the locker room, and relive the amazing games, goodbyes, reunions, and the best fandom in all of Central America.

A street dweller tries to convince a group of people waiting for the bus to give him some money.

Alejandra and Joaquín are a couple marked by his ups and downs. His emotional instability has left him unemployed again, which has made the relationship even more complicated. Alejandra does not understand why everything is so difficult for her husband, nor the reasons for his unhappiness, when he seems to have everything.

In the small coastal town of Manzanillo, Costa Rica, local teens and adolescents share their stories, lies, and fantasies on the cusp of a cataclysmic event. Playing amid ruins and wreckages, and voicing their boredom at the lack of change, Manzanillo’s children engage in a collective fabulation, finding strategies for building a new world from the old.

Born into the Chinese community in Costa Rica, filmmaker Nicole Chi Amén was never able to communicate with her grandmother Guián, who couldn’t speak Spanish. After her death, Nicole heads to China to rediscover her roots. The result is a sublime cinematic travelogue in which sensuous shots capture the essence of a place, in spite of linguistic differences.

Aaron Spielman, an unfortunate film producer, seeks revenge for the failure of his frustrated film, making the behind the scenes of his film "Amores que matan", to blame the disastrous production on its director Héctor Gómez Beltrán .

The lives of Matias family as they struggle with illness and his brother boxing career

A politically twisted surfing/travelogue documentary on Costa Rica. A funny, satirically-spinning doc, with great footage of surfers in the wash. A historical account about a guy reflecting on his time in socialistic Costa Rica.

Based on true events, is the first christian movie filmed in Costa Rica. Katherine, a young girl was abused in childhood, her life was perturbate since that particular event, even today she remember that moment and afford a new reality. In the other side, Alfonso and Rosario have a dificult marriage. They meet for first time their son's girlfriend, but inmediately Alfonso starts a secret relationship with that girl. On the worst moment, Jesus Christ come on and save their life showing them a new hope, love and forgiveness.

Based on true events, is the first christian movie filmed in Costa Rica. Katherine, a young girl was abused in childhood, her life was perturbate since that particular event, even today she remember that moment and afford a new reality. In the other side, Alfonso and Rosario have a dificult marriage. They meet for first time their son's girlfriend, but inmediately Alfonso starts a secret relationship with that girl. On the worst moment, Jesus Christ come on and save their life showing them a new hope, love and forgiveness.

The year is 2050 and alien space travelers look down on Planet Earth and witness the terrible devastation that it has suffered from climate change and environmental destruction at the hands of its most dominant species—humans. Incomprehension sweeps throughout the alien ship and into their alien thoughts, as they ask 'how can such an intelligent and creative species treat their own planet like this?' They return to the present day to warn young people about the society that awaits them if positive action is not taken. Time is running out—it's not too late.

An experienced vampire finds another of his kind in the middle of the street drinking blood. They start a conversation that ultimately leads them to do business together and become part of a great franchise.

The situation at the Wholesale Market is complicated. Leiner’s boss doesn’t show up, and there’s no one to open the banana stand for the long night of work he had planned ahead. With little else to do, Leiner gets a message from his friend Magneto: he needs help moving the merchandise they ended up with that night.

A lonely older woman receives a visit from a seller at home. She uses him to materialize her dreams.

In a desolate supermarket, a religious woman's peaceful evening is interrupted by the sudden arrival of three punks, who are running away from the police and hiding something much more valuable than money.

Ana has been married for 30 years when she meets by accident the only love she ever had. The impact of this encounter makes her become aware of what she lost.

In the nineteenth century, while a young girl is walking in the countryside, and a unexpected encounter with a familiar face unearths a secret.

"S T A I N S" is a short film composed of five short videos that use dance as a language to tell the story of a family and the generational traumas that have left indelible stains in their history. This audiovisual work proposes an introspective and empathetic experience for all viewers by exploring the concepts of family and stains as narrative resources in the context of traditional Latino families.

Carla travels to Costa Rica with her three daughters in order to explore the place where the plane in which their father was a passenger disappeared. Throughout the trip, the four of them decide to make a film that ends up capturing much more than that search

Amaurosis is a story of the psychological and emotional dilemmas of an artist (Manuel) who lost his sight in a traffic accident and flees with his only relative, a boy nicknamed Gatillo.

Documentary about malnutrition in Costa Rica

From the high mountains of Carrara marble in Italy to the coast of the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica, the documentary Polvo de Estrellas traces the spiritual journey of the Costa Rican sculptor Jorge Jimenez Deredia, the first Latin American artist who makes a sculpture for the Basilica San Pedro. In the vertigo of a new millennium stands its simple and harmonious work. The renowned critic Pierre Restany, defines his sculptures as objects of meditation that put us in touch with our inner dimension. We are stardust, says the artist, the cosmos is the mirror of our history. The soul a tie that binds us to infinity.

In rural Costa Rica, a 95-year-old midwife passes on the wisdom of her craft to a new generation of women fighting for their right to choose how they give birth.

(noun 1. what precedes and serves as the entrance, preparation or beginning of something)

The Costa Rican situation of women incorporated into the production in a double shift, jobs and housework.

A naive village girl leaves for city during transitional times for Costa Rica.