A Cinematic Dialogue between Nicaragua and Costa Rica: Shaping a Transnational Cinema through Filmic Exchanges

Abstract

This thesis focuses on the ways in which Costa Rican filmmakers and the Centro Costarricense de Producción Cinematográfica (CCPC) privileged the social documentary format of the New Latin American Cinema (NLAC) movement to critically view current events from 1973 to 1979. By analyzing a variety of Costa Rican and Nicaraguan films, primarily documentaries, from 1973 to 1983, and by referring to a number of primary source interviews, it examines how the 1979 Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua gave an impetus for Costa Rican filmmakers to support more revolutionary, politicized cinematic points of view through co-productions and strategic alliances with the Nicaraguan revolutionary film institute Instituto Nicaragüense de Cine (INCINE). Additionally, this thesis also aims to provide an analysis of how these incipient national cinemas that developed in the region during the above-mentioned time period were politically and socially relevant for an international market.