Valentina Maurel’s coming-of-age drama “I Have Electric Dreams” has proved a major winner on the international festival circuit and a daring work that further highlights Costa Rica’s burgeoning film scene. The film won the prizes for director, actress and actor at the Locarno Film Festival, and San Sebastián Film Festival’s Horizons Award.
The film follows Eva, a restless 16-year-old girl who is experiencing her sexual awakening and is desperate to leave the house she shares with her mother and younger sister and move in with her estranged father, a troubled creative artist who paints, sculpts, writes poetry and drinks too much.
The film, which screens in the Thessaloniki Film Festival’s international competition, is a personal work that explores darker aspects of family relationships, Maurel explains.
“It’s inspired by the things that I…
