Published on Tuesday, April 29, 2025
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

"Memories of a Burning Body" (Memorias de un cuerpo que arde), a Costa Rican film written and directed by Antonella Sudasassi Furniss, won the "Platino Award for Cinema and Education in Values" at the 2024 Platino Awards for Ibero-American Cinema.

The awards ceremony, which includes 22 competitive categories (16 for film and six for television), was held Sunday at the Gran Tlachco Theater in the Riviera Maya, Mexico.

The film was nominated in four categories: Best Screenplay, Best Actress (Sol Carballo), Best Supporting Actress (Liliana Biamonte), and the category it ultimately won, Best Film in Cinema and Education in Values.

The movie is a drama that explores the lives of three women, Ana, Patricia, and Mayela, who came of age in a repressive era when sexuality was a taboo subject.

Starring Sol Carballo, Paulina Bernini, and Juliana Filloy, the film portrays how these women, now in their sixties and seventies, learned about femininity through unspoken rules and societal expectations.

Told in a poetic style, the film blends the women’s voice-over narration with the visual performance of another woman of the same age, who brings their memories, secrets, and desires to life on screen.

A Costa Rica–Spain co-production, the film premiered in the Panorama section of the 74th Berlin International Film Festival on February 19, 2024, where it received the Panorama Audience Award for Best Feature Film.

It was also selected as Costa Rica’s official submission for Best International Feature Film at the 97th Academy Awards, though it did not secure a nomination.

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