The silent majority is the Costa Rican peasantry, which has been the object of traditional contempt and which has manifested itself in various forms: unfair salary compensation, bad prices for their agricultural products, financing difficulties, land grabs, precarious housing and educational conditions. health. Precariousness, peasant migrations and the depletion of the agricultural frontier are also analyzed in the film.
This film was originally made for the International Conference on Human Settlements (HABITAT) which was held in Vancouver, Canada. Taking as an example the production and marketing of bananas and the prevailing conditions in the world market - dominated by the virtual monopoly of three multinational companies -, it is shown how as a result of this monopolistic domination, the Costa Rican State has stopped receiving equitable taxes for what that, in the end, the housing and public services offered by the country are characterized as those of an underdeveloped society. The attempt made since 1974 by a group of banana-producing countries, aimed at improving sales prices to multinationals and raising taxes; The resulting “banana war” are examples of the enormous efforts that small banana countries have to make to achieve greater justice in the prevailing market conditions.
In 1977, the workers of the INAVE vehicle assembly company went on strike. This strike was declared legal, one of the few registered in the country. This strike was also a strike that demanded great sacrifice from the workers. It lasted more than three months, more than three months without pay and in constant struggle, until the strikers finally achieved their victory.
A girl regularly leaves food at the door of her grandfather's room, who is ill. One day the grandfather does not open the door. Then the girl decides to enter.
After meeting at a party, Luciana and Pedro... embark on a spur of the moment journey together that takes them to the forest. Asthey explore the beauty in the nature that surrounds them, they camp out under the stars, go on hikes, indulge in the passions of their encounter, and discuss their personal beliefs surrounding love, obligations, and attraction. Lensed in lush black-and-white cinematography amidst the gorgeous backdrop of the Costa Rican forest, an honest and genuine relationship story unfolds, lending a feeling of realism to their storybook romance in a refreshing and youthful way.
The Costa Rican situation of women incorporated into the production in a double shift, jobs and housework.
What are the social climate and cultural traditions in Costa Rica which nurture "machismo" and allow the domination of women to continue in Latin America?
A black comedy about Chalo, a lone security guard who acquires his first gamecock and discovers the bittersweet taste of friendship.
The film is a call of conscience about the disappearance of forests in the country. Great industrial needs have created a greater demand for wood, the necessary expansion of livestock and agriculture is causing the destruction of forests in regions where only forests can provide an acceptable economic return. In view of the irrational progress of tree felling and in view of the slowness with which state institutions intervene in this problem - determining for the future of the country - it was decided to make this film.
This documentary, filmed at Christmas 1973, "searches" for the causes of malnutrition in the slums, in the unemployed population, in the living conditions that someone defined as "extreme misery." This approach, novel for the time, produced controversies since the trend then was to define child malnutrition solely as a medical and health problem. However, the inquisitorial camera discovered the malnourished child under the bridge, in the poor neighborhoods... in the arms of the marginalized woman. And the documentary tells us something else: as long as these living conditions persist... the cry of the malnourished child will persist.
In 1974, the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE) began work on the Arenal hydroelectric project. As a result, two towns, Arenal and Tronadora, had to be relocated. Canto a dos pueblos is the first of three films made to record this significant event.
This document shows the solidarity of the people and government of Costa Rica towards the people of Nicaragua in their fight against one of the most opprobrious tyrannies in Latin American history: the dictatorship of the Somoza family. It aims to point out the reasons that moved Costa Ricans to support the insurrectional feat carried out by the Nicaraguan people in their desire to achieve freedom, after 43 years of Somoza repression.
This is a documentary about the situation of an indigenous Bribri family living near Salitre in Buenos Aires, Puntarenas. The film tells how this Bribri family has been losing the land that was theirs since time immemorial; it denounces the abuse suffered by the few indigenous people who still survive in Costa Rica.
This film shows the general aspects of the school garden program carried out by the Ministry of Public Education in the country's schools. In its development, the film shows how schoolchildren prepare the land, plant vegetables and legumes, take care of their crops and collect the harvest to, finally, consume these products in the school cafeteria. As a result of all this, the school garden becomes the “classroom” where the student learns the basic techniques of cultivating the land and the importance of good and healthy nutrition. At the same time, interest, affection and respect for farm work is awakened in the student.
The film gives us an idea of how the Youth Symphony Orchestra operates, which was created taking into account a young member and a future violinist named Iván, who alternates soccer with violin exercises.
This film presents three possible techniques or methods that make it possible to meet the growing demand for wood without the country becoming a desert: spontaneous reforestation, carried out by the country's youth, technical and commercial plantation, and the comprehensive use of forests. . Scientists and farmers, peasants and young people express their opinions on these techniques and on the critical situation that the country is going through. The "lone witness", a tree abandoned to its fate in the middle of infertile pastures in the Puriscal area, leaves graphic testimony about the felling of trees taken to the absurd.
At the dawn of Independence, our society desperately seeks a way out of the economic and social confinement that the Spanish colony has imposed on it. The cultivation of coffee is presented as a viable option, but the landowners refuse to grow it, fearful of losing their colonial privileges.
