Costa Rica Culture – Making Movies

Writing a screenplay is hard enough; selling a screenplay, producing and distributing a film boasts tougher odds than winning the lottery.

Livia Linden and Percy Angress decided to take the chance. Just when they made a mark in Hollywood, they left and moved to Costa Rica to expand on a career in the cinema.

The cost of making a film in Hollywood (or anywhere in the U.S.) can be prohibitive. Livia and Percy decided to lower their overhead by living in Costa Rica.

In November of 2001, the couple embarked on a search for money to fund their first full-length independent feature film; financial backers surfaced from Costa Rica, and the project was a go.

TropiX – the paradise noir comic-edged thriller set and filmed in Costa Rica – was written, produced, and directed entirely by Linden and Angress.

Hollywood puts out about 500 films a year. Those films cost millions (and millions) to make. Linden and Angress estimated an original budget at $365,000; they didn’t land far off. Making a film, especially a full-length feature, for under $500,000 could be labeled a modern day miracle.

After scouting locations, choosing actors and crew, filming of the project started filming in 2002. After several months of editing, the next objective was distribution.

TropiX beat the odds by not only finding financial backing, but also mainstream distribution.

The couple are raising two children in Costa Rica and is writing new projects while promoting TropiX. Livia took a breath to talk about their experience of living in Costa Rica and filming in paradise.

What brought you to Costa Rica?

“We wanted to have a new experience – “an adventure” – and also to live in a place where we could lower our overhead and thus have freedom to write and make films.”

One of the first scripts the couple sold was The Spree. A thriller bought by MGM/Showtime as a movie-for-cable staring Jennifer Beal’s of Flashdance fame and Rita Moreno from West Side Story. In 2000, the couple won first place at the 2000 Slamdance Film Festival Screenplay Competition.

The couple produced La Calera, a Spanish-language short film, which won several prizes around the world, including Best Professional Drama, at the 1998 Costa Rican Film Festival. Costa Rica continued to play a big role in their film making careers.

Why did you decide to shoot a film in Costa Rica?

We were living here; Costa Rica is a beautiful country, and I had written a script that was set here.

TropiX is about a vacation that goes bad. Corinne, an American tourist, travels to Costa Rica with her husband in search of rekindling their romance.

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The trip turns into a tropical nightmare. Corinne discovers the “shadier” part of her husband’s life, which lands her into a lot of trouble and him even more. The film was shot in the jungle, beaches, and shows a bit of the odder side of tourist life.

What inspired you to write this film?

I first conceived the idea for TropiX while driving through a banana plantation – the endless, hypnotic image of bananas was my starting image. It was an image that was for me at once poetic, disturbing, quotidian (for a tropical country) and exotic.

What were the biggest challenges of the film?

Straddling two countries; and finding crew and equipment in a country that doesn’t have a significant film making infrastructure and bringing people (i.e., the Director of Photography, DP and gaffer, and four of the five main actors) and equipment from the U.S.

What were the most gratifying parts of film making?

The various landscapes of Costa Rica, the beaches (Manuel Antonio), the canals (Isla Damas) and the banana plantations. These were hard outdoor locations. I also have a particularly fondness for the shack in the banana plantation. It was a knockdown structure built by our art director.

The interiors were shot on a sound stage and the exterior we hauled and set up in the banana fields. The neon cross as well. That was particularly gratifying for me – putting a structure we constructed into a natural outdoor location. The shack looked beautiful in the plantation, as if it had been there forever. I was very sorry when we had to take it down.

You and your husband made the film together, and your children are fully immersed in Costa Rica – what is the experience like as a family to live in Costa Rica?

Costa Rica has been a good place for us in that it has given us creative freedom. I think it has given my children a broader view of the world than if they were only growing up in the U.S. And of course they are bilingual, which is invaluable.

Would you shoot another film in Costa Rica?

We would shoot another film here if Costa Rica was an appropriate setting.

The odds of making it in the film industry are low, yet you did it. How do you feel about your success?

We’re pleased, cautiously optimistic about the film’s financial prospects, and eager to make the next movie(s).

Film making is an artistic and business process. Explain what aspects are good about doing business in Costa Rica and working as an artist.

Costa Rica has many superb film professionals, since many commercials are shot here. Our DP and gaffer – from LA – said our crew was one of the best they had ever worked with. In certain ways working here was easier than in the U.S. – we didn’t have to worry about getting permits for example.

On the other hand, we had to bring in a 35 mm camera. There are no 35 mm sound cameras here because there is so little movie making in this country. Likewise, we had to send our dailies (daily film footage) to Miami. Flying in equipment and sending out film in the post 9/11 world required some extra effort.

Do you have any advice about someone wanting to make a film in Costa Rica, and to a broader extent, start a business in Costa Rica?

Do your research carefully. Talk to people and find out what things cost. In terms of film making, find out what is available here and what isn’t. I don’t run a business, so I can only speak out of my own observation about what I have seen in the years I’ve lived here.

I’ve watched people make successes of businesses of all sorts, and a fair number of failures too. As far as starting a business, again, do research.

This is a very different market from the US or Canada – much smaller. Costa Rica is a big small town. On the other hand, there are so many things that don’t yet exist here, so there are many niche markets to be filled. When we first arrived, for example, there were no bagels available. Since we’ve been here, we’ve seen the development of two successful bagel businesses.

Where can we see TropiX? Can we buy it, rent it, is there a website?

TropiX will be available at Blockbuster and Hollywood Video. The website is www.tropixmovie.com

A trailer can be viewed on the website. Linden and Angress are considering screening the film in Costa Rica. However costs may be prohibitive, since it involves places subtitles, among other expenses.

Can you talk about your next project – will it involve Costa Rica?

My next project will be an off the wall comedy set in the world of plastic surgery. It will not be shot in Costa Rica since it is very character driven and the locations are not important.

TropiX had striking outdoor locations – this film will have largely indoor locations and since I will be using U.S. actors, it will be more practical and cost effective for me to go to the US, rather than to bring people here.

When making films is in your blood, somehow the show goes on. Costa Rica was pivotal in the budgeting and filming of TropiX – an ambitious independent film project. Rent TropiX for a taste of adventure and a sample of Costa Rica life.

“We love to watch them, talk about them, let them take us places we couldn’t even dream of,” said Linden and Angress in a press release. “Movies allow us to step outside our own lives for brief hours of vicarious thrills and catharsis.”

It won’t be long before Livia Linden and Percy Angress will again be behind the camera. They said they’ve committed their life to living as artists; creating cinema we love to watch.

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Written by Susan Lutz who is a film maker and writer living in Costa Rica. Her documentary film, The Coffee Dance available for sale an Amazon.com, follows a group of women in the depths of poverty as they strive for empowerment. She teaches film and lectures in Costa Rica. She’s produced radio documentaries and is currently finishing her first travel book on Costa Rica. She writes an internationally recognized blog on life in Costa Rica, Motherjungle.com and is the editor of the Organic Living Page on Allthingshealing.com

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