Valentina Maurel‘s feature debut, I HAVE ELECTRIC DREAMS (TENGO SUENOS ELECTRICOS) lands 3 Awards at the 75th edition of Locarno Film Festival; Best Direction Award, Best Actress Award for Daniela Marin Navarro and Best Actor Award for Reinaldo Amien Gutiérrez.

Valentina Maurel’s coming-of-age drama has proved a major winner on the international festival circuit and a daring work that further highlights Costa Rica’s burgeoning film scene. The film won the San Sebastián Film Festival’s Horizons Award and continued its winning streak at the Thessaloniki Film Festival, where it took home the Golden Alexander for best feature film, and leading man Reinaldo Amien Gutiérrez also won the award for best actor.

The film follows Eva, a strong-willed, restless 16-year-old girl who lives with her mother, her younger sister and their cat, but desperately wants to move in with her estranged father. Clinging onto him as he goes through a second adolescence, she balances between the tenderness and sensitivity of teenage life and the ruthlessness of the adult world.

Bathed in a richly textured imagery and soaked in raw sensitivity, I HAVE ELECTRIC DREAMS captures the thin line between love and hate, in a world where aggression and rage intertwined with the vertigo of female sexual awakening.

International Press:

“There is a lot to admire in I Have Electric Dreams. The actors are terrific throughout, the writing is potent, and the cinematography is unobtrusive”

The Film Verdict

“sensual, spiky debut”

Screendaily