Small-budget filmmakers are putting their big ideas on the screen in Costa Rica this week in San José, as part of the Central American Youth Video Festival “La240” – referring to the number given to the video format on which the participants' short-films are made.

Video fans already viewed 25 works, as of yesterday, Day 2 of the event, according to the festival's Web site http://la240.com.

An international cast of under-35-year-old directors from Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama will show a total of 68 shorts, as the festival's spot suggests, “ sin plata, con ideas ” (without cash, with ideas).

Nationally made shorts include “Suicide Revelations,” an under 7 minute video-clip by José Pablo Porras, and Gustavo Abarca's 9:11-minute work “ La Desnudez de los Santos ” (The Nudity of Saints). Shorter works include Tico video-artist Albán Camacho's “ El Cadenazo ” (“Big Chain”), running only a minute and a half.

In additional to open-air screenings at its headquarters, the National Culture Center (CENAC), La240 is celebrating its fourth edition at San José's Cultural Center of Spain, which is hosting the “Parallel Film Screenings” series and a screenwriters' workshop, as well as at Bar El Observatorio.

The festival runs through Saturday.