In 2018, director Juan Manuel Fernández was in Thailand, catching up with the news from his home country of Costa Rica, when he came across the story of Anthony Venegas Abarca. The young man had bravely gone public with accusations of child sexual abuse against Mauricio Víquez Lizano in a case that would lead to a groundbreaking 20-year prison sentence and reshape the way Costa Rican law dealt with the statute of limitations around child sexual abuse.
Anthony’s story is at the centre of “El monaguillo, el cura y el jardinero” (“The Altar Boy, the Priest and the Gardener,” in literal translation), having its world premiere at the Costa Rica Film Festival.
Speaking with Variety, Fernández recalls being “really sincere” in his first meeting with Anthony and Josué Alvarado Quirós, a second plaintiff. “I told them from the beginning I wanted to make a film about this. I still had to look for money and make it a viable project, but I was willing to give my work for free because the story was so important and timely.”
With the statute of limitations around Anthony’s case getting closer and closer to expiring, Fernández saw himself embroiled in a dramatic chase as he and his subject travelled to Mexico to track Lizano, who had escaped Costa Rica to avoid prosecution. “This is when the chase began, involving Interpol. Finding the man in Mexico was much harder than in Costa Rica because it is such a big country. I told Anthony we had to go because we didn’t have much time.”
On the sensitivity of working with victims of child sexual abuse, Fernández says it made for a “very delicate film” because he did not want to “revictimize” his subjects. “I wanted them to feel comfortable and was always checking in on how they were feeling and trying to communicate as we went. It was hard for them to go back to those memories and have everything surface again. We tried to look for a secure spot for those conversations, and I used voice-overs because then we didn’t have to have the camera on them all the time.”
The filmmaker, whose long-spanning career includes the CRFIC-winning “Los Vargas Brothers” and “Los Maes de la Esquina,” recognizes the great challenge of “El monaguillo, el cura y el jardinero”: to expose a prominent member of the Catholic Church in a country like Costa Rica.
To safeguard himself and his team, Fernández worked with a lawyer who oriented him on how to broach the subject onscreen, as well as choosing to focus on the victims’ story instead of working on a more generalized approach against the church itself.
“I have a bit of fear, but I know we have to show the film in the cinema because it will move people,” says the filmmaker. “It’s such a Catholic country, and people are very orthodox in a way, but the film is not about the Church itself, it’s about the story of these men. I knew we couldn’t — and I didn’t want to — go wide with this film. I wanted to stay with the characters and their stories; this is what mattered to me. I didn’t want to look into other priests, I wanted to see how these two men embodied the trauma of abuse through different perspectives.”
“Their abuser is in jail — it’s not allegations anymore, it happened. It’s the truth,” he concludes.
“Impermanence” courtesy of Juan Manuel Fernández
Fernández also told Variety about his next film, “Impermanence,” which similarly deals with a very sensitive subject: the high rates of suicide within Indigenous communities, more specifically within the Talamanca reserve in Costa Rica. The project was shot over several years in the reserve, with the director taking the time to get to know the residents and the community.
“Talamanca is one of the most important reserves in Costa Rica and also shares one of the highest rates of suicide in the country,” says the filmmaker. “I filmed with two families who have had loved ones die by suicide: a man who lost both parents to it, and a trans man who has suffered a lot of bullying because of his gender identity. It’s a really interesting place, in the middle of the jungle, and I’m looking forward to bringing this discussion to Costa Rican audiences.”
“Impermanence” is a co-production between Costa Rica’s Biofilms and El Salvador’s Proart and funded by Ibermedia. The film is currently in post-production with Fernández aiming to release next year.
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