Maricarmen Merino

Where are you? is a search that began five years ago when José Merino died. José was the most important left-wing leader of Costa Rica, and also the father of Maricarmen, the director. The film is a dialogue between a man’s public political life, and the intimate universe of his family, where his youngest daughter decides to live her grief accompanied by a camera.

Abril is a sharp-tongued, exhausted social worker whose life is held together by caregiving, obligation, and a constant state of emotional triage. Recently divorced, she raises her teenage daughter Valentina in a cramped, precarious domestic rhythm that feels increasingly unsustainable. During a family therapy session, Valentina announces she wants to move in with her father Julián, whose life appears effortless by comparison. As she faces an empty house, Abril finds an unexpected spark of possibility in Gabriel, a charming bartender whose warmth offers escape from her carefully managed despair. The budding romance opens the door to a version of herself unshaped by marriage or motherhood, but her own insecurities and unresolved history with Julián threaten to derail her progress. When buried truths about the end of their marriage unexpectedly surface, Abril reaches a breaking point - collapsing under the weight of her grief, professional burnout, and growing isolation.