A Costa Rican filmmaker travels to Jinotega, Nicaragua, seeking to reconstruct the image of his grandfather, a Chinese photographer who emigrated decades ago. Through family phone calls and the gradual development of a single photograph in the darkroom, he discovers that understanding his grandfather is also a journey to understanding himself.
Pablo Wong (Costa Rica) is a filmmaker, cinematographer, and photographer. He founded Destello Films, focused on independent cinema and international co-productions. He also teaches film at Universidad Veritas, where he received an Honorable Mention for Teaching Excellence in 2025. He is currently developing the feature documentary “Mapache,” selected for the Script Incubator of BoliviaLab 2025.
Awards & Selections
“The Emulsion of Time” (Director) — Euro CineLab Award 2025 (Costa Rica); Work in Progress Section, Huesca International Film Festival 2025 (Spain).
“Gemas Sabbat” (Director) — Official Selection, Corrosivo Film Fest 2025 (Costa Rica).
“Selva Adentro” (Cinematographer) — Honorable Mention, shnit Realtime Costa Rica 2025.
“Ernesto en la Tierra” (Cinematographer) — Best Film Adaptation (Cinema & Literature), Festival del Cinema Ibero-Latino Americano di Trieste 2022 (Italy); Audience Award (Best Documentary), XIII Central American Film Cycle 2022 (Vienna, Austria); Honorable Mention, Costa Rican National Film Awards “Amando Céspedes Marín” 2022 (Costa Rica).
“Primera Cena” (Photographer) — Honorable Mention, FotoVeritas 2025 (Costa Rica).
Though Wong isn’t my first surname, I’ve always been known as Pablo Wong. Since I was a child, I’ve felt a deep connection to my Chinese roots—so much so that I’m the only one in my family who’s ever traveled to China. It wasn’t a trip for sightseeing. It felt like something in me needed to return to where it all began.
My grandfather was a photographer. He died young, when my mother was only four. After his passing, my grandmother was forced to migrate to Costa Rica, and everything was lost—his photos, his studio, his archive. All that remains is a single photograph that used to hang in our living room. And yet, his presence never truly left. My grandmother used to say I was the one who resembled him the most.
Now that I’m fortunate enough to work in filmmaking and photography, I often feel I’m continuing something he left behind. No one else in my family pursued this path. Though my parents raised me with a deep love for art and culture, I’m the only one who turned it into a calling. And in the darkroom, watching images emerge slowly from water and light, I feel a quiet kinship with him. We shared the same process, decades apart.
The Emulsion of Time is a journey to find him—or at least trace the imprint he left behind. It’s a road trip from Costa Rica to Jinotega, the Nicaraguan town where he settled after leaving China. A place where little remains, except for scattered memories shared by my mother and uncles. Like photographic development, it’s a delicate, uncertain process—one that takes patience, intuition, and light.
This film isn’t an attempt to fill the void. It’s a gesture of gratitude. A way to leave a trace of what was—and what, in some way, still is.
