WHERE ARE YOU?
¿Dónde estás? / Costa Rica/Mexico, 2018
Director: Maricarmen Merino

Spanish with English subtitles | 72 min
Costa Rica Spotlight / Activismo

Preceded by ESTELAS
Saturday, August 24 | 3PM | Cinematheque


Where are you? is a search that began seven years ago when José Merino del Río died. He was the most important left-wing leader in recent Costa Rican history, charismatic and admired leader of the Frente Amplio (Broad Front) party, a member of the Legislative Assembly, and also the father of Maricarmen, the director. His death at the age of 63 at the peak of his political career left a huge void. Rich with archival footage and personal interviews, the film is a dialogue between a man’s public political life and the intimate universe of his family, where his youngest daughter decides to live her grief accompanied by a camera.

“¿Dónde estás?” es una búsqueda que comenzó a partir de la muerte de José Merino hace cinco años. José fue el líder de izquierda más importante de las últimas décadas en Costa Rica, y además padre de Maricarmen, la directora del documental. La película es un diálogo entre la dimensión pública de la vida de un hombre, y el universo íntimo de su familia en el que su hija menor decide vivir su proceso de duelo acompañada de una cámara.



The first question I asked myself after my father’s death was where was he? Where did he go? “Where are you?” Maybe that was the only question he wasn’t able to answer…the most important and painful one as well. A few months after his death I began this film. I wasn’t sure what it was about or what it was for, but somehow I knew that the camera was accompanying me in the years I’ve felt most lost and lonely. – Director Maricarmen Merino

José Rovirosa Best Student Documentary, Mexico 2018


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