BYE BYE, PARAÍSO

Vilma has made it. After a youth marked by hardship, the 45-year-old now lives in a large beach house in one of the most exclusive areas of Costa Rica. The ocean roars, the sun shines, and everything resembles the paradise she had always dreamed of. But appearances are deceptive. The house does not belong to her. The man who funds it lives in the United States and visits only once a year. Richard is seventy—she calls him her "Prince Charming"—and her entire life depends on his financial transfers. When he fails to show up this year, communication ceases, and money runs low, the dream begins to crumble.

Alone in an environment defined by tourists, soaring real estate prices, and social inequality, Vilma must confront a question she has suppressed for years: Who is she when her "savior" is no longer there? What remains of an identity built upon the expectations of someone else? Set against the striking backdrop of a tourist paradise—with subtle cracks appearing in her own facade—the film offers an empathetic, sharply observed portrait of dependency, the experience of aging as a woman, and the quest for autonomy in a country that markets its own "paradise" narrative.

Director Kim Elizondo Navarro, a graduate of the EICTV in Cuba, spent over six years researching her feature film debut. Her process included focus-group interviews with women over 40, discussions with her creative team, and reflections on her own grandfather’s migration to the United States. The result is a film that never judges its protagonist; instead, it seeks to understand how one ends up in a state of dependency—and what it costs to break free. A tragicomedy about the dark side of paradise and a woman who learns to live without her "prince."