The thirteenth version of the Costa Rica Worldwide Movie Pageant marks the primary iteration with Patricia Velásquez Guzmán on the helm, however the filmmaker is a veteran in relation to the San José-based occasion. Guzmán has participated on the pageant since earlier than it was a pageant itself, producing the movie showcase within the 2010s and returning a number of instances each as a part of the manufacturing crew and as an invited filmmaker.

“I do know the pageant very properly, so, as a lot as I like it dearly, I additionally know the way it may be improved,” Guzmán tells Selection forward of the pageant’s kick-off. “One of the vital essential issues proper now’s connecting with youthful audiences with out reducing the standard of the movies we’re programming. We’re additionally closely targeted on the pageant’s communication, catering the publicity to the themes we’re protecting and the way individuals can finest expertise the pageant.”

One other key precedence for Guzmán is making the pageant extra regional to Central America and the Caribbean. The pageant’s two competitions — for finest function and quick movie — now embody movies from your entire area as a substitute of simply Costa Rica, because it did in years prior. “Solely by forming alliances can we make the pageant stronger. And never simply on the pageant stage. It’s tough for a filmmaker from Costa Rica alone to make a lot of an affect. We now have voices telling related tales from related locations. We now have considerably totally different cultural points, however share shortcomings. We watch movies from the Dominican Republic and Panama, and it resonates with what’s occurring right here.”

This continental resonance is current within the function movie competitors, with movies largely broaching problems with the rise in authoritarianism; the connection between colonized nations in Central America and their colonizer, Spain; and the inventive dialogue between generations as nations within the area expertise massive sociopolitical change. The excessive variety of documentaries displays this curiosity within the historical past of the nations within the area, with seven out of the eleven movies in competitors being non-fiction, together with two Costa Rican world premieres in Álvaro Torres Crespo’s “Ella se detiene a mirar” and Juan Manuel Fernández Escoto’s “El monaguillo, el cura y el jardinero.”

Different movies in competitors embody Annecy standout “Olivia and the Clouds,” two Dominican Republic dramas in “La bachata de Biónico” and “Sugar Island,” and San Sebastián entry “Querido Trópico.” On high of a exceptional variety of documentaries, one other attention-grabbing factor about this 12 months’s CRFIC is the emphasised give attention to feminine filmmakers. The nation boasts a fruitful new era of administrators, spearheaded by key girls behind the digital camera, corresponding to Antonella Sudasassi (“Reminiscences of a Burning Physique”), Valentina Maurel (“I Have Electrical Desires”), Nathalie Álvarez Mesén (“Clara Sola”), and the pageant’s very personal Guzmán, whose newest movie, “The Pores and skin of the Water,” premiered at Locarno final 12 months. 

On the pageant’s first version with a girl at its helm, CRFIC is proud to announce it has reached equality when it comes to the variety of movies directed by girls on the pageant, in addition to organizing a particular strand referred to as Ladies Below the Affect to showcase female-directed movies from Spain.

“We now have lots of feminine administrators and filmmakers throughout the manufacturing chain. We even have the Unión de Directoras de Cine, and have made nice progress inside establishments to have extra equality,” says Guzmán. “We’re seeing the outcomes of years of labor now and are terribly pleased with it.” 

Now, one other lengthy stretch of labor begins for the pageant because it goals to domesticate youthful and usually extra numerous audiences. “The pageant has lengthy catered largely to cinephiles,” factors out its director. “We wish movies that may be attention-grabbing to youthful individuals and kids, to the aged, to people who find themselves not essentially cinephiles, and movies that present realities Costa Rican audiences will not be used to seeing.” 

To reply to this demand, Guzmán and her crew have programmed pageant favourites corresponding to Payal Kapadia’s “All We Think about as Mild,” Andrea Arnold’s “Chicken,” Gabriel Mascaro’s “The Blue Path,” and Berlin Teddy-award-winner “Lesbian Area Princess,” in addition to presenting a strand titled Era Alpha, reflecting on what it feels wish to be younger immediately. Elsewhere on the pageant, the Yr 13 strand celebrates the mythology across the quantity with a collection of style choices corresponding to Sundance-hit “The Issues You Kill” and Juan Francisco Olea’s fashionable western “Bitter Gold,” and the pageant pays homage to musical cultures with a collection of movies below The Beat Invasion banner, together with “DJ Ahmet” and “The Flamenco Guitar of Yerai Cortés.”

This meaty programme is Guzmán and her crew’s response to shrinking budgets on the pageant, which could constrain its measurement however has not dampened its ambitions. “Even when our price range shrinks, we strive to verify audiences don’t discover,” says the pinnacle of the pageant. “We collaborate with totally different establishments and work on methods to make the pageant really feel bigger and higher for audiences in addition to filmmakers. We wish to create alternatives for filmmakers to attach and wish to ship the perfect programme we are able to. I feel we have been profitable this 12 months.”