Tico Director to Film Movie on Isla San Lucas

Isla San Lucas, a natural reserve and former prison island in the Gulf of Nicoya on the Pacific coast, will soon be the site of a movie by Costa Rican director Douglas Martin.

Martin recently told the daily Al Día he plans to film a movie based on the book “La Isla de los Hombres Solos” (“The Island of Lonely Men”) by Costa Rican author José León Sánchez, which tells his story as a prisoner on the island who was later declared innocent (TT, Aug. 26, 2005). Filming is set to begin in December, Al Día reported.

“We’re not basing the movie just on the literary work, but also on the life of José León Sánchez, who remained in San Lucas until his innocence was proven,” said Martin, a five-time winner of the National Prize for Literature.

Sánchez returned recently to the island where he was incarcerated and called the experience “painful” but said he had to confront his experiences “so that new generations don’t experience the horrors that were experienced there,” including torture.

Sánchez was sentenced to jail in 1950 for committing murder while robbing jewels from the Los Angeles Basilica in Cartago, east of San José. He got out of prison in 1969 but was not declared innocent by the Penal Branch of the Supreme Court (Sala III) until 1999.