Paraguayan director Renate Costa has died today in Paris at age 39 of cancer, five years after being diagnosed. She was best known for her directorial debut 108 / Cuchillo de palo, which had its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival and was the winner of the Best Documentary Award at the Guadalajara Film Festival. The film was a New York Times Critics’ Pick in its U.S. theatrical release.
Born in Asunción in 1981, Costa studied Audiovisual Direction and Production at the Paraguayan Professional Institute, followed by Documentary Filmmaking at the International Film School of San Antonio de los Baños (EICTV), Cuba. In 2006 she moved to Barcelona, where she graduated with a Master in Creative Documentary from Pompeu Fabra University. She made her directorial debut with the 2007 short documentary film Che yvotymi - Mi pequeña flor, which she also produced.
In 2010 she premiered her powerful debut feature 108 / Cuchillo de palo, a personal documentary about the secret life of her gay uncle, Rodolfo Costa, under the oppressive government of the Paraguayan dictator Alfredo Stroessner. When he was found naked on the floor of his home in Paraguay, Rodolfo had already been dead for days. Though ostensibly jobless, he had mysteriously amassed a small fortune. He also had a secret alias — Héctor Torres — and a secret life.
At the time, Costa was a young girl. Asked to select her uncle’s burial garb, she found his closet empty. Surely the lively, colorfully-dressed Rodolfo she knew could not, as those around her claimed, have died of sadness. In 108 / Cuchillo de palo, which unfolds like a mystery novel, Costa investigates the shadowy circumstances of Rodolfo’s death. Witnesses and clues gently reveal Rodolfo’s true identity as a persecuted gay man and the terrifying “108” homosexual blacklists that ruined lives, careers, and families.
108, which was screened at numerous international film festivals, is a moving illustration of the impact that the right-wing dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner, who ruled Paraguay from 1954 to 1989, had on the so-called “108”s living in the country as experienced by a single Paraguayan gay man and his family.
In 2012 she co-directed with Finnish director Salla Sorri the CPH:LAB documentary short Resistente, which had its world premiere at the Orizzonti section at the Venice Film Festival, becoming the first Paraguayan film in competition at the Italian festival.
As a documentary producer, Costa worked on the Argentine film Cándido López, Los campos de batalla (2005) by José Luis García, winner of the Audience Award at the Buenos Aires Film Festival (BAFICI) and Best Film, Best Script and Best Documentary at Argentina’s Cóndor Awards. She also served as an editing consultant for Jayro Bustamante’s Ixcanul (Guatemala, 2015) and Gustavo Rondón’s La Familia (Venezuela, 2017). Costa likewise collaborated in the development of the Paraguayan films Paraguayan Hammock (Paz Encina, 2006), and 18 cigarrillos y medio (Marcelo Tolces, 2010).
Costa was currently working on a new film project titled Boreal, which had already finished shooting in Chaco. She is survived by her six-year daughter.
