Renowned Costa Rican actor, playwright and poet Ana Istarú will appear alongside daughter Ardélia Istarú in the latter’s next directorial outing, “Quemada.” Valentina Maurel’s production company Tres Tigres will produce alongside France’s Geko Films and Panama’s Mansa Productora. The project is part of the Desde el Centro showcase at the upcoming Costa Rica Media Market, taking place in San Jose on July 14-15.
“Quemada” is a hybrid documentary exploring the “legacy of shame” by blurring the lines between objective documentary recording, performative reconstruction and abstract artistic expression. The film stems from a personal experience lived by the director: After the non-consensual distribution of her intimate photos at age 15, Istarú published a testimonial online that became the subject of national media attention. Years later, she returns to the family home to confront this story with her mother, erotic poet Ana.
“Shortly after my testimony spread online, and because of the pressure that came with it, I moved out of Costa Rica,” Istarú tells Variety when asked about the origins of the project. “Revisiting the story felt like a way to better understand the fracture it had created between me and my country. I never believed that making a film about it would necessarily heal that fracture, but I hoped it might allow me to return to it with a renewed sense of dignity. I also wanted answers, and I wanted them to come directly from the people who had shared my intimate pictures in the first place.”
The director says what interested her was using her experience “to open a conversation with my mother about sexuality, and to confront her with the contradictions of being a feminist raising a daughter whose experience resists conventional ideas of victimhood.”
Istarú notes that working with her mother felt like a “natural continuation” of her first short film, “Pruebas,” following Ana’s arrival in Europe in 1982. “The trust we built while making that film created the conditions for a much deeper collaboration now. That’s why, when I first proposed this project to her, she also saw it as a necessary exercise for both of us. ‘Quemada’ explores the inheritance passed from mothers to daughters: the shame, fears, and contradictions surrounding female desire.”
Courtesy of Ardélia Istarú
The filmmaker also emphasizes she did not want to make a film “that stopped at the question of school bullying.” “I was more interested in looking at the power dynamics between the victim and their tormentor, and at the unsettling way reconciliation can sometimes feel like the most comforting outcome. There is a tendency to seek validation from those who have harmed us, as though they alone could release us from the guilt of having resisted them in the first place.”
“I want to free myself from that guilt, and if I do it in a way that might also allow others to free themselves of it, even better,” she adds. “At times, I deliberately expose myself to the viewer’s judgment, giving them the opportunity and even inviting them to question my decisions. Why give these young men the chance to redeem themselves in a film about the consequences of their own actions?”
Asked about working with lauded Costa Rican director Valentina Maurel, whose “Forever Your Maternal Animal” won best actress for its ensemble at the Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard, Istarú says Maurel’s Tres Tigres banner “provides an important platform for ‘Quemada,’ helping a film with such complex themes reach diverse audiences.”
“Given how much Costa Rican cinema has grown lately, frequently reaching Class-A festivals and working alongside them is a natural way to plug into that momentum,” she adds.
Geko Films’s Gregoire Debailly says what drew him to “Quemada” is “the playful and inventive way she revisits a painful experience, turning it into a vibrant exploration of memory, intimacy, and the surprising ways women across generations connect and shape one another.”
“Quemada” has recently secured the Ibermedia Co-Production Fund. It previously received development support from Ibermedia and the El Fauno Fund and participated in the Ibermedia Workshop for Cinematic Projects from Central America and the Caribbean.
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