The Awakening of the Ants

Isabel is trying to manage two small daughters and the entire weight of the house on her own. Her husband Alcides wants a son and will not let it go. She quietly starts using contraception, and the tension of the film comes exactly from that secrecy: a woman’s decision about her own body is the thing that cannot be said out loud in the house. Antonella Sudasassi Furniss’s first feature is about pressure rather than event; the anger does not shout, it accumulates through daily chores. It is set in San Mateo de Alajuela in Costa Rica. Daniella Valenciano plays Isabel and Leynar Gómez her husband. It had its world premiere in the Forum section of the 2019 Berlinale, was submitted as Costa Rica’s entry for the Academy Awards, and became the first Costa Rican film to reach the finalists for best Ibero-American film at the thirty-fourth Goya awards.