June 13, 2022
La picada, Felipe Zúñiga’s debut film, will have its world premiere at the Guadalajara Film Festival, considered one of the most important festivals in Latin America to promote film production. The co-production between Caramba Films (Costa Rica), Noche Negra (Costa Rica) and Ceibita Films (Chile) will compete for the award for best Ibero-American documentary feature film. After premiering at FICG37, the film will continue its tour at the Costa Rica International Film Festival, in the Central American and Caribbean Feature Film Competition.
The film tells the life of Rosmeri, the last inhabitant of La Picada, a town destroyed by constant eruptions of ash, where the most active volcano in the country is her best friend, and that relationship will be the engine that drives her to resist the pressure of those who ask her to leave home.
His previous work, San José de Noche (Armando Céspedes Award, 2019) is a short film that explores new audiovisual languages. Both this and the debut film that premieres worldwide at FICG, have led him to participate in different development labs, such as the FICCI Documentary Workshop, Bolivia Lab, Ibermedia Project Development Workshop, Toulouse Development Cinema, SANFIC Lab, Docs for sale from IDFA and WIP from CRFIC.
In the last one, La picada, produced in Chile by Alejandro Crisóstomo, won two awards: Cinema in post-production of the CRFIC – Costa Rica International Film Festival 2020.
With our section In Conversation With we wanted to know in depth the motives, interests and expectations of the director.
We invite you to take a look on the exclusive trailer
La Picada – Trailer from Ceibita Films on Vimeo.
This festival is a very important event for the local cinema, being selected is a great honor and a unique opportunity to share the film with an audience with which we have common language and customs. I hope the audience can connect with the story and empathize with Rosmeri.
Rosmeri is the starting point of everything. She and her story are the greatest cinematographic inspiration I have found. I am very touched with the generosity she has shown me, sharing her story and openness to let us explore her daily life. We met in 2015 and since then we started a friendship that led us eventually to make a film. Rosmeri is a person who had not had previous experience in filming, so we had a period of adaptation, of recognizing the camera and ourselves as a team.
The process of the film occurred while the Turrialba volcano was in its strongest eruptive period within hundreds of years. This was a challenge, not only because it technically complicated things with the equipment, but because I felt a little afraid to be there. There were some eruptions with big piles of ash hundreds of meters high and you get the feeling that it will fall on you. At an artistic level it was a challenge to find the film, the tone, the style, the way to shoot.
These spaces are very important because they open the possibilities for the film, they are an opportunity to validate the work and find partners who are interested in collaborating. Without going through these industry spaces, films would have many difficulties to exist.
I knew Alejo because I had seen with great admiration several of the films he made in Central America. We met at the CineLatino Festival in Toulouse back in 2017, we talked about the film and clicked right away. The contribution he has given to the project has been very valuable, personally he has been a very patient travel companion and always willing to collaborate.
A day after our last screening at the Guadalajara Film Festival we will premiere at the Costa Rica Film Festival. We hope to find partners and instances to show the film to as many people as possible. There will be a premiere in Chile that we are also looking forward to.