If We Don’t Burn, How Do We Light Up the Night
In rural Costa Rica, Laura steps out of girlhood and into the world of adults. As she navigates teenage angst and messy emotions, a quiet and foreboding unease seeps into her life.
Description
The placid surface of a rural Costa Rican town hides a mystery in Kim Torres’s striking debut feature. A newcomer to the village, teenaged Laura (Lara Yuja Mora) takes wary steps toward her new home and adulthood with a curiosity and confusion typical of her age. But even as she makes new friends in this idyllic setting, Laura perceives a sense of violence underscoring all their lives. While she and her pals swim, run through the forest, and make bracelets for one another, an unease continues to grow before taking the shape of a devastating loss. The stakes are high for Laura as this coming-of-age tale slowly unfolds to reveal the menacing secret that threatens to destroy her fragile sense of self. —Bedatri Choudhury
Biographies
Kim Torres is a Costa Rican American director and screenwriter, born in the U.S. to a Cuban-Costa Rican family and raised in Costa Rica. Her short film Night Light (2022) was the first Costa Rican film to be nominated for the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or. Her other shorts include Suncatcher (2021) and The Moon Will Contain Us (2023).
