Costa Rica’s Hilda Hidalgo, best known for her lauded adaptation of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel “Of Love and Other Demons” and drama “Violeta at Last” is plunging back into fiction filmmaking with “Cousins” (“Primas”), where she teams up once again with “Violeta at Last” producer Emi Kodo, DP Nicolás Wong, a Costa Rican Variety Below-The-Line Talent to Track last year, and art director Olga Madrigal.
Taking a page from her past documentaries, Hidalgo will give a hybrid treatment to “Cousins” where her young leads will turn cameras on themselves in some scenes.
The coming-of-age drama, Hidalgo’s third fiction film, follows two 12-year-old girls who are forced to run away from their homes after a traumatic incident. Trapped in a spiral of escape, complicity and feverish visions, they wield their phone cameras to expose the truth, confront the unnamable and find a way to make themselves heard.
“Every film demands its own language, with ‘Cousins,’ although it’s a scripted fiction film, I want it to be infused with the spirit of a documentary. The screenplay is there, but I’m interested in preserving the unpredictability, intimacy and sense of discovery that documentary filmmaking allows,” Hidalgo told Variety.
“Cinema is, by its very nature, a collective art form. I believe films are strongest when they are created by the entire team. Yet actors often work within a structure that has already been fully defined. With this project, I wanted to push that collaboration further by inviting the young actresses to become co-authors of the film itself. They will use their own mobile phones to shoot part of the story, creating images that belong to them as much as to the film.”
She used a similar approach in “Two Homelands,” her documentary about Cuba where she graduated with a degree in directing from the prestigious International School of Film and Television (EICTV). “Because filming there was so difficult, we sent high-quality mobile phones to the women at the center of the film and asked them to record moments from their everyday lives. Their footage brought an authenticity and emotional immediacy that no outside camera could have captured.”
“With ‘Cousins,’ we’re exploring a similar approach, though in a very different context. This isn’t a documentary about the actresses’ own lives, but I want them to become collaborators in the filmmaking process. As they build real friendships and share experiences, they’ll be free to film moments on their own – without the crew being present. Later, during the staged fiction scenes, they’ll continue filming from within the action. In this way, their footage becomes an essential part of the film’s visual language, capturing moments and perspectives that only they can access.”
“The film is also about the awakening of desire – about discovering your own sexuality at an age when those feelings first begin to emerge. That’s what makes it so paradoxical. It’s a time when desire is still fragile and full of wonder, yet it can also be marked by violence and abuse. Those two realities become painfully intertwined,” she continued, adding that Costa Rica, she feels, has been “living through a pandemic of sexual violence.”
“It’s impossible to ignore. I can hardly think of a family that hasn’t been touched by abuse in some way – my own extended family, friends, people I know. It’s a reality that feels deeply present, and one I felt compelled to explore.”
“But I wanted to tell this story without losing the girls’ perspective. The film is not defined by the violence inflicted on them; it’s shaped by how they experience it, how they make sense of it, and the agency, resilience and rebellion they discover within themselves.”
She is holding back on casting until she secures additional funding and co-production partners. The girls are likely to be unknowns or could be tapped from Costa Rica’s growing number of film and acting schools.
“When you’re working with children, I believe it’s essential to have the budget in place before casting. Otherwise, the process can drag on for months or even years. The girls grow older and you risk creating expectations that may never be fulfilled. While it’s always preferable to secure financing before casting a film, in this case it’s absolutely indispensable.”
Discovering what her counterparts in Chile and other smaller territories have realized, Hidalgo noted: “For Costa Rican cinema, international co-production is essential. It’s possible to make a film with local financing alone, but it’s an uphill battle, and it inevitably limits the film’s distribution. Our domestic market is simply too small. A co-production not only makes financing more attainable, it also creates opportunities for the film to travel, reach wider audiences, and build a stronger international life.”
In fact, “Of Love and Other Demons,” her well-received adaptation of the novel by Literary Nobel Laureate Gabríel Garcia Márquez, was the first co-production forged between Costa Rica and Colombia. “Violeta at Last” was a co-production with Mexico.