In March 2014, a renowned photographer and film director from the United States was plying her erotic trade in Costa Rica. Holly Randall was photographing pornographic model Mia Malkova at a waterfall, and the photographer shared her experience about working in Costa Rica on her Tumblr social media page:

Finally my shoot with Mia Malkova that I shot for Twistys [has been] published! We came to this location very early in the morning, and our fantastic guide was able to have it closed to the public for an hour. (Our timing was great, as we were packing up the car and leaving, an enormous bus full of Japanese tourists showed up).

I have to say, this was an amazing day, but unfortunately it’s hard for me to enjoy my surroundings while I’m working. [I] can get incredibly anxious when shooting guerrilla style out in public areas.

I will also say that there were times when I was terrified while shooting this– at the end, when Mia climbed up the slippery rocks to get shots under the waterfall, I kept having visions of her slipping and cracking her head open on the rocks. I as I’m shooting these amazing shots of one of the industry’s most beautiful girls, in [Costa Rica], one of the world’s most beautiful locations, all I can think is that Mia’s going to fall, and I’m going to have to explain to my client that I killed their contract model.

Author’s Note: Many of the links in this article point to Web pages that contain graphic content of an adult, sexual nature. Readers should exercise caution when clicking on these links, particularly if they are browsing from work. Not all the links are graphic, but if you believe they are, then that is probably the case.

Holly Randall is the daughter of Suze Randall, a British woman who became the first staff photographer for men’s magazine Playboy and a highly regarded visual artist. Like her mother, Ms. Randall adopted a certain style of photography and cinematography that strongly focuses on the profound effect of feminine beauty and sensuality.

After the waterfall shot with Mia Malkova, Ms. Randall returned to Costa Rica to photograph and film female models for Playboy and Twistys. Not all of her projects in Costa Rica have featured a single model as the focus of the shoot; sometimes, more than one female model is involved, and they engage in sexual acts with each other. On at least one occasion, Ms. Randall has produced pornographic scenes acted by a male and a female in our country, and she tends to prefer nature backdrops such as beaches, waterfalls and the forest.

Ms. Randall happens to be just as attractive as the models she works with, and she prefers to produce scenes that are not too explicit, which in the pornographic industry are usually labeled as “softcore.” Her work in Costa Rica since last year marks a return of pornographic productions to our country after years of inactivity.

A History of Pornography in Costa Rica

The history of pornographic productions in Costa Rica dates back to 1994. According to data stored in the Internet Adult Film Database (IAFD), the European pornographic film label Private produced two films in our country that year: Costa Rica Getaway and Costa Rica Studies. Those movies mostly feature actors from Europe and the United States, but Costa Rica Studies did include two actresses from our country.

In the pornographic film industry, Private is known to shoot very explicit scenes in exotic locales, all the while apply high production values. The next batch of pornographic films made in Costa Rica did not feature such high production values; in fact, they were filmed under the “gonzo” style of making movies, which means unsigned talents, no scripts, no plots, shaky cameras, confusing lens angles, etc. In 1997, Sticky Video released Wildlife 2: Life from Costa Rica, a film that featured some scenes in California and the rest in San Jose and Manuel Antonio.

In 2001, the advent of digital film production increased pornographic filming in Costa Rica, and two gay movies were released that year: Lured To Costa Rica and Off The Street 3: Costa Rica And Vancouver. Those two films prominently featured local actors.

Three years later, a film named Fresh Phat Ass Costa Rica featured five local actresses that were only credited with first names. That film kicked off what could be considered a Golden Age of pornography in Costa Rica. In 2005, a gonzo film label known as Uncle Lanny Productions released a number of hardcore scenes featuring uncredited and unknown local talent; these short films are notable in the sense that they bypassed DVD and were released directly on the Internet.

In 2006, a major pornographic film production in Costa Rica resulted in a scandal augmented by the nascent world of Internet social media and by peer-to-peer file sharing through the BitTorrent protocol. The films in question are Jungle Party 1, Jungle Party 2, Paradise Party Girls, and Island Casting Call. They were distributed online, on DVD, and even in adult movie theaters by a label named Costa Rica Films.

The aforementioned films featured about a dozen actors and actresses, all from Costa Rica. The locales include luxury hotels, mansions in the forest and secluded beaches in Guanacaste. The cast members were credited under pseudonyms, but it did not take long for netizens in online forums and social media to figure out the identity of all actors, particularly in the Jungle Party films, which are essentially extended orgy scenes that last more than an hour.

Had it not been for an actress named Michelle Lopez, who was mostly known as a lingerie model prior to 2006, the above-named films may have languished in relative obscurity amidst an ocean of online pornography. Alas, the comical reaction of Ms. Lopez upon being recognized was quickly picked up by tabloid and gossip media. When confronted about her participation in the films, Ms. Lopez claimed the existence of an estranged twin or an evil doppelganger.

Other cast members were more forthcoming about their participation on the films, and they assured news media outlets that Ms. Lopez was in fact one of the actresses. In 2007, co-star Kendry Miranda told defunct newspaper Al Dia how Ms. Lopez would get calls on her expensive Nokia mobile phone, and how she would tell callers she was in San Carlos, when in reality she was in Escazu, Jaco and Guanacaste working on the films.

As it happens, Ms. Lopez’ denial would become her downfall. Netizens in Costa Rica paid very close attention to her work on the films, and they noticed that she was very talented, enthusiastic and unrestrained insofar as engaging in anal intercourse and seemingly enjoying having sex with multiple male and female partners.

Ms. Lopez finally admitted that she participated in the films, but in doing so she also filed a criminal complaint that alleged she was tricked into doing the films; she ostensibly believed she was participating in a video to promote tourism, but when she arrived on the set she claimed she was forced to perform in orgies under duress and coercion. Ms. Lopez told journalists about the existence of a “porno mafia” that threatened her family unless she had sex onscreen.

The complaint filed by Ms. Lopez quickly evaporated upon interrogation of her co-stars, who explained that they thought she seemed to be having a lot of fun filming scene after scene over a five-day period. Ms. Lopez was reportedly paid $400 per day and would later receive a performance bonus. The films were a hit on the nascent “tube” networks, on DVD, and on the torrent sharing websites.

Eventually, Ms. Lopez would embrace her calling and appeared in subsequent pornographic productions filmed in the gonzo style. In February of 2007, she attended Costa Rica Bash in Jaco Beach, which was a conference for the online pornography industry. Costa Rica Bash was the peak of the Golden Age of pornography in our country; it not only featured business stakeholders but also adult film celebrities such as Casey Parker and Ms. Lopez. Also in attendance was Canadian mogul Calvin Ayre of the BoDog online gambling empire, which still had a presence in Costa Rica at the time.

It can be assumed that the sordid state of affairs brought on by the Ms. Lopez / Jungle Party incident paved the way for pornographic film production in Costa Rica, but the scene actually fizzled after the industry event in Jaco Beach. Ms. Lopez and some of her female co-stars would later be rumored to have taken up work as call girls, and their male counterparts as “maripepinos,” disrobing and dancing at divorce parties for women.

The dark clouds of the Great Recession in the United States were looming; the bursting of the real estate market in that country would bring about the Global Financial Crisis, which coincided with the sudden disappearance of pornographic film production in Costa Rica, at least until Ms. Randall’s recent work in our country for Twistys and Playboy.