THE AWAKENING OF THE ANTS

EL DESPERTAR DE LAS HORMIGAS

By Antonella SUDASASSI

BETTA FILMS S.A. - as PROD

First film - Completed 2019

A young mother starts taking birth control pills against her husband’s wishes. Facing her will against social expectations, makes her hallucinate obliging her to rethink herself.

Festivals
& Awards

Ventana Sur 2017
Primer Corte
Berlinale 2019
Forum
Festival de Malaga 2019
Sección Oficial
Costa Rica Festival Internacional de Cine 2019
Competencia Costarricense de Largometraje - PREMIO A MEJOR PELÍCULA NACIONAL
IFF PANAMA 2019
Competencia Centroamericana de Largometraje
Rotterdam Curaçao International Film Festival 2019
Official Competition
Cinelatino Tuebingen 2019
International Competition
    • Year of production
    • 2019
    • Genres
    • First film, Social issues, Family
    • Countries
    • COSTA RICA, SPAIN
    • Languages
    • SPANISH
    • Budget
    • 0.3 - 0.6 M$
    • Duration
    • 88 mn
    • Director(s)
    • Antonella SUDASASSI
    • Writer(s)
    • Antonella SUDASASSI
    • Producer(s)
    • Amaya IZQUIERDO (Betta Films), José ESTEBAN ALENDA (SOLITA FILMS)
    • Synopsis
    • In the Costa Rican countryside where Isabel (28) lives, you difficulty decide what to do or who you want to be, you just are. As Isabel, a young mother of two decides to start taking control of her body and life and begins taking birth control pills against her husband’s wishes, her moral doubts and the fear of being discovered will slowly immerse her into a state of psychosis with hallucinatory episodes that portray her feeling of guilt, her relationship with her body and sexuality.

      The oppressive heat, the humidity, the rain, the economic difficulties they live with, the clumsy affection, the loneliness, the nudity, the nature, the insects, the ants, the beach, the fiction characters immersed in a reality tainted with abandonment will push Isabel to recognize what others expect from her and face with what she really desires.

      On a trip to the beach with the family of her husband, one of her sisters-in-law finds out Isabel is taking the pills and threatens to tell her husband. In her psychosis, where she now hardly distinguishes reality from hallucinations, she ends up hurting herself, event which forces her to confesses her husband that she doesn’t want to have any more children.
    • Beginning of shooting
    • Mar 26, 2017
    • End of shooting
    • May 15, 2017