Costa Rica is a country that has passionate and inspired citizens, key aspects to achieve success.Allegra Pacheco is a Costa Rican artist who has achieved international success.Among her achievements is the documentary “Salaryman”, presented and awarded at the Los Angeles Documentary Film Festival, in Hollywood a few months ago.
For Allegra, Salaryman is the product of teamwork that took 5 years, everything between filming, fundraising, editing, post-production and now touring festivals for a little over a year. “It has been a project that has been around for a long time, now it is taking on a life of its own, obtaining recognition is the product of all the effort, and identification of users with the documentary,” she said.
Salaryman, has won several awards: best documentary, best editing, best production and even best soundtrack.In addition, it was screened at renowned festivals in cities such as Ohio (Latino International Film Festival), New York (Harlem International Film Festival), and Tokyo (Tokyo Lift-Off Film Festival).
The production explores the lives of office workers and simultaneously, the artist’s personal self-discovery along the way. The idea arose during her first visit to Tokyo, where she was disturbed by what she witnessed: office workers passed out on the street of exhaustion, from there she began to ask questions about the dark side of the legendary work ethic in that country.
A childhood full of culture
Allegra was born in Costa Rica, she is currently 36 years old.Her father is Costa Rican with German blood and her mother is Cuban with Spanish blood, she considers that the diverse culture of her parents greatly influenced her growth, because she was always traveling and her sphere was not limited only to Costa Rica but rather all the world.
“When I was a child, everything was a bit nostalgic, on the one hand because I had to find my own space, where I was born did not feel like my only home, perhaps because culturally I had different customs, but as the years have gone by I have come to love Costa Rica even more, I live between Santa Teresa on the beach and the mountains of Escazú”, she says.
When talking about her childhood, Allegra also told us that she went to the beach a lot with her parents, especially to Bahía Ballena, back then when it was untouched by civilization, they spent time without electricity, always connected with nature,.
A passionate artist
Art has always been part of her life since her mother is an artist, architect, painter, an interior designer. Her father has worked on various occasions designing furniture, metal objects from bars to key rings, and a line of handbags and Polo items, so at home there has always been influence and support in art.
Linking boxing with painting
Allegra studied Photography in New York and Fine Arts in London,she paints every day, recently focusing more on oil painting, and is learning ceramics with a friend. She also practices boxing, whichshe links to painting, and is developing a series of paintings related to that sport.
“My teachers and my boxing partners inspire me,discipline in general because it requires practices with mental effort, perseverance, and concentration, maybe those are things that have cost me to achieve in the past and now for me are more attainable, seeing people who put so much effort so much passion on a daily basis and achieve what they propose is what inspires me”, she commentes.
Nature is the ideal place for spending most of her time, but also sharing with friends, enjoying her pet and reading.Allegra wakes up early, she does not think so much about goals but rather about projects, these days it is working on the aforementioned series of paintings of boxers, she would love to exhibit these works in various places, but it is still a project in development. Another project is the publication of a Salaryman photo book. And show the Salaryman documentary in Japan, that would fill her with much satisfaction.
Finally, the Costa Rican artist makes it very clear that “each person finds a different source of motivation: some have to take care of other people, others have individual goals, some have a spiritual or religious life, for me the simple fact that I am passionate about something, drives me to explore, my greatest motivation is curiosity as well as fear, I feel that it is an arrow pointing to something that presents opportunities either to change your own opinion or to grow, it seems to me that fear is a good indicator of situations or events that they may surprise you.”
