Natalia Solórzano Vásquez’s new hybrid documentary, “Spells to Revive a Witch”, has secured backing from Spanish company Testaferro and Uruguay’s Guay Films ahead of the Costa Rica Media Market. The film centres on Soralla de Persia, a Costa Rican fortune teller who became famous in the 1960s and was later largely forgotten. The project matters because it uses Soralla’s story to explore how women who once held public visibility can disappear from collective memory, and how cinema can recover those erased histories.

Produced by Costa Rica’s Sputnik Films, the documentary is described as a “casting call to embody” Soralla, with different women invoking her through memories, interpretations and personal experience. It marks the first collaboration between Solórzano Vásquez and Sputnik Films; the director previously premiered her debut feature, “Avanzaré tan despacio”, at IDFA in 2019, while Sputnik is known for backing Sofía Quirós Ubeda’s Cannes-selected “Land of Ashes” and is currently in post-production on “Madre Pájaro”. Solórzano Vásquez said she discovered Soralla while researching women in Costa Rican media and saw her disappearance from public memory as a way to reflect on the women whose lives were not considered worth preserving, as well as on the social cost for women who defy expected roles.