Among projects pesented at the CRMM: An upcoming pic with Berlin best actress Paulina García, the latest from 2026 Cannes winning producer Tres Tigres and a real life ‘witch’ horror story
“Victoria in the Clouds,” starring Berlin best actress winner Paulina García, and “Quemada,” from the producer of 2026 Cannes winner “Forever Your Maternal Animal,” both feature at the 2026 Costa Rica Media Market’s Desde el Centro, a projects showcase that highlights key upcoming titles and on-the-rise companies and the ambitions of one of the youngest growing film scenes in the world.
The CRMM runs July 14-15 in the Costa Rican capital, San José.
The highest profile project at Desde el Centro, “Victoria in the Clouds,” reunites Chile’s Paulina García, a Berlin Silver Bear winner for her turn in Sebastián Lelio’s “Gloria,” with Panamanian director Ana Endara after their multi-prized “Beloved Tropic,” a 2024 Toronto/San Sebastián premiere.
Ardélia Istarú’s “Quemada” marks one of the latest films from Costa Rica’s Tres Tigres, behind Valentina Maurel’s Locarno Golden Leopard double winner “I Have Electric Dreams” and Cannes 2026 Un Certain Regard best actress laureate “Forever Your Maternal Animal.”
Of the five production houses behind projects at Desde el Centro that revealed their company launch dates to Variety, only one, Sputnik Films, is more than 10 years old. If made, two of the projects – from Istarú and Luis Diego Pérez – are debut features, and two more – from Paz Léon and Natalia Solorzano – are sophomore outings.
The emerging filmmakers are on a mission. Páramo Films, founded last year by Luis Diego Pérez, “seeks to contribute to the development of a young local cinema voices with global resonance,” “rooted in the sensibility and spirit of Costa Rican identity.” The same could be said of producers from Panama and Guatemala at the CCMM.
Yet that identity has to be broadened, filmmakers argue. “I think we’re less interested in representing an idea of Costa Rica than in questioning it, expanding it and finding new cinematic languages to talk about who we are,” “Spells to Revive a Witch” director Natalia Solorzano tells Variety.
Central America, or some parts at least for the moment led by Costa Rica, is firing up, powered by pan regional co-production. Guatemala’s Argot Productions, for example, has one feature film in post-production, “Se’ K’o,” co-produced with Spain, and three feature projects in production: “Bi’tzma,” with Honduras and Panama; “See You in November”; and “Salt Mountain,” with Guatemala, Mexico and Argentina.
As a region made up of small countries, there is no way to go other than co-production.
Argot has received national funding for the development and production of its projects. One challenge, however, is the political volatility of national film funding sources. One case in point: Argot’s “April’s Tales” was awarded a production grant from the Honduran Film Institute to support part of the project’s production, says Argot producer Ever Rodas. “However, due to the current political situation in the country, these funds have not yet been disbursed.”
Undeniable is the sense of momentum and yearning for stability of an exciting new generation of Costa Rican directors, often women, scoring selection at A-list festivals. In this sense the 2026 Cannes Un Certain Regard ensemble best actress prize for “Forever Your Maternal Animal” is recognition of just how far Costa Rican cinema has come, and will spur ambitions and confidence for it to go further.
A closer look at the titles in the Costa Rica Media Market’s Desde el Centro:
Since April was six, Darwin, a Honduran experimental filmmaker, has connected with her via screens. An auteurist doc feature shot during April’s vacation trip to Honduras in July 2026, “April’s Tales” is the film father and daughter create together so that connection might endure, despite challenges of migration and language. Shot primarily on iPhone 11 devices in Germany and Honduras, select sequences will be filmed with cinema cameras and a theatrical mise-en-scène to evoke the protagonists’ memories and emotional journey, producer Ever Rodas tells Variety.
“The Beast Is Not to Blame” (“No culpen a la bestia,” Costa Rica, Panama)
A queer coming of age drama: When his best friend with whom he had a special bond suddenly moves away, introverted Iván, 9, preparing for his First Communion, is forced to confront the pain of loss in silence. “This film is important and relevant in today’s context because it acknowledges the existence of queer childhoods in Latin America and the constant search for safe spaces they must undertake in secret due to a cruel and hostile environment,” says Pérez.
From Alejandra Vargas Carballo’s Noche Negra, behind Kim Torres’ San Sebastián New Directors entry “If We Don’t Burn, How Do We Light Up the Night” and Felipe Zúñiga’s Sanfic best director winner “La picada.” When Marta (32) discovers she has breast cancer, fear and uncertainty take hold. She begins talking to this mass as if it were an intimate companion, leading her to an unexpected connection with her own body. “‘La Pelota’ explores a rarely portrayed dimension of breast cancer: not as a story of loss, but as a profound encounter with the body, desire, and the fragility of life,” León tells Variety.
Here, in a hybrid doc feature, scribe-helmer Istarú (“Pruebas”) blends record, fiction, performance and abstract artistic expression. Ardélia and mother Ana, an erotic poet, level up about the non-consensual distribution of Ardélia’s intimate photos at age 15. That also means confronting Ardelia’s school bullies who distributed the photos, while exploring the complex “power dynamics between victim and tormentor, and the unsettling way reconciliation can sometimes feel like the most comforting outcome,” Istarú tells Variety.
“Spells to Revive a Witch” (“Alguien se acuerda,” Costa Rica, Uruguay, Spain)
Director: Natalia Solórzano Vázquez.Producer: Sputnik Films
Set up at Sputnik Films, behind Sofía Quirós’ 2019 Cannes Critics’ Week player “Land of Ashes” and follow-up “Madre Pájaro,” a hybrid doc feature turning on a casting call to embody Soralla de Persia — Costa Rica’s mythical 1960s fortune teller. “This film is an act of collective remembering. It begins with a woman who was erased (from public memory, from the stories her country tells about itself) and asks what it takes to bring someone back,” says Solórzano Vázquez.
“Victoria in the Clouds” (“Victoria en las Nubes,” Panama, Chile, France)
Set in Panama’s lush coffee growing landscape, 65-year-old plantation owner Victoria (Paulina García) is forced to question her privileged life. “Through Victoria’s journey, the film explores the contradictions of privilege, the transformation of rural communities, and the challenge of recognizing one’s own place within those changes,” Endara tells Variety. Produced by Isabella Gálvez’s Expansiva Cine, an emerging powerhouse co-producer in Central America, alongside Mansa Productora (Panama), Mimbre Films (Chile) and Respiro Production (France).
Tavares Abel’s family has no images of her great-grandfather’s life in Palestine before he migrated to the Caribbean. Teaming with Louvenson, a Haitian artist living in the Dominican Republic, the director sets out to recreate those missing memories through stop-motion animation as Louvenson shares his own experience of migration. “‘Yubarta’ connects two seemingly distant realities: the Palestinian experience of displacement and the persecution of Haitian migrants in the Dominican Republic,” says Tavares Abel. Produced by the Santo Domingo and Detroit-based Cinema Costanera, which made Berlin Forum feature “Colosal.”
The feature-debut of the London-based Italian writer-director-producer, “Xibalba” is a psychological thriller set at a rotting villa in the rainforest, where an aging Nazi exile’s life unravels as the jungle and paranoia take control of his last refuge. “The protagonist’s isolation has created a fragile sense of stability, built upon routine and delusion. When that stability begins to fracture, the rainforest surrounding him becomes an extension of his deteriorating state of mind, exposing the fears and contradictions he has spent a lifetime suppressing,” Salvadori tells Variety.