Susan Lutz moved from the United States in 1998 to live in Costa Rica. Lutz has written an internationally read website about Costa Rica, MotherJungle, which attracts readers from as far as Africa, Europe, and Canada. The website was selected by GlobalPost as one of the top five in Costa Rica, revealing stories and lessons that explore the real jungles of life.
In the visual-media book, The Paradox of Paradise: A Woman’s Journey to a Place called Heaven on Earth, Susan recalls a journey of transformation in her move to Costa Rica.
In 2010, Susan released her first documentary film, The Coffee Dance, about an impoverished group of women in La Carpio, Costa Rica using theater to educate others. The documentary intertwines not only the story about the women through the creation of a play, it also follows three of the women into their homes to see and hear what it is like for them to live day in and day out where often, there is not enough food to eat and violence is a matter of course. The documentary also includes footage and a look at how complicated the coffee crop is to grow and harvest. A process that weaves together commerce with the lives of those it touches.
Her latest documentary film project is Thy Daily Film: A film a day to nourish the soul. Every day a film, about a minute or two long, is posted with the objective on focusing on the big and small things in life we tend to let slip by, underappreciate, and perhaps miss. We need more than the physical world of things to bring a balance to life and come in greater harmony with our soul.
