Andrés Madrigal's 'Lost Men' Premieres in Costa Rica
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- "Lost Men" has its world premiere at the Costa Rica Film Festival, marking director Andrés Madrigal's feature debut as the film transitions from a private family project to public release.
- Madrigal's grandfather died in a 2019 fire after 57 years of marriage in conservative Costa Rica; following his death, Madrigal's father disclosed that the patriarch had been a closeted gay man his entire life.
- Madrigal launched the project as an archival impulse to preserve memories of his grandfather, noting that a lot of his grandfather's writings and recollections were already gone forever.
- Madrigal and his father structured the interviews as "conversations" with ground rules — including the option to stop at any time — and worked at a pace meant to let both of them process reopened family wounds.
- The film incorporates San José's queer nightlife and Madrigal's own queer circle, including his ex-partner, a choice Madrigal describes as framing "personal as political."
- "Lost Men" is a Costa Rica-Guatemala co-production by Blue Paradox Films (Madrigal and producer Sofía Meza Herrera) and Guatemala's 4:4:4 Televisión (Felipon Díaz), with support from Costa Rica's El Fondo Fauno and the Netherlands' Prince Claus Seed Award.
Why it matters: Madrigal explicitly positions his grandfather's closeted life as a mirror for the broader constraints on queer existence in mid-20th-century Costa Rica, while the film's Costa Rica-Guatemala co-production reflects producer Sofía Meza Herrera's argument that Central American cinema is an "alliance without borders" built on shared, scarce regional resources.
