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DOCUMENTARY FILM RESIDENCY IN CUSCO
Sacred Valley of the Incas
July 2026 Session
The Documentary Film Residency is an intensive creative and training program in Calca (Sacred Valley of the Incas), Cusco, designed for filmmakers, artists, or individuals interested in exploring documentary filmmaking from a personal and situated perspective.
Over the course of two weeks together, participants will develop a comprehensive practice that combines reflection, experimentation, and audiovisual production. Through workshops, exercises, and personalized mentoring, they will navigate all stages of the documentary process—from research and writing to filming and editing—in dialogue with the territory, the community, and their own creative processes.
Calca and its surrounding communities offer participants a territory where the question of identity and memory is not academic: it is part of daily life. This residency aims to be a transformative experience: a place to think, feel, and create through film, in connection with the landscape, the living cultures of Cusco, and the inner processes of each participant.
The residency thus proposes a deep exploration of ways of seeing and relating to reality, fostering the development of a unique authorial voice through technical tools, critical sensitivity, and a constant openness toward the world and toward each individual.
Download the Residency brochure here.
WORKSHOP LEADERS:
Álvaro Sarmiento
Perú - Tallerista
Álvaro is a documentary director, producer, and screenwriter. His work lies at the intersection of auteur cinema, ethnographic documentary, and political cinema, exploring Amazonian and Andean worldviews from a non-extractivist perspective.
His films have been screened at more than 200 international festivals in 40 countries, solidifying his reputation within contemporary documentary cinema.
Álvaro has been selected to participate in training programs such as the Berlinale Doc Station, the Locarno Documentary Academy, the Global Campus of Human Rights at the Venice Film Festival, and the Flaherty Film Seminar in Thailand. He has also been a recipient of the Carolina Foundation Screenwriters’ Residency, the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Residency, and the IBERMEDIA Co-production Fund.
Álvaro studied Communication and Film at the University of Lima, continued his education at Universidade Estácio de Sá in Brazil, and earned a Master’s degree in Film Directing from Ohio University.
Diego Sarmiento
Perú - Tallerista
Diego is a filmmaker whose work spans documentary, auteur cinema, and socially conscious filmmaking, with a focus on the Amazon and the Andes. As a producer, he has worked on internationally acclaimed films such as LA HIJA CÓNDOR, which premiered at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival, and RAÍZ, which premiered at the 2024 Berlinale, where it received a Special Mention from the Generation Kplus Jury.
In 2020, he was a winner of the Berlinale Talents Footprints – Mastercard Enablement Programme, with a jury chaired by Wim Wenders, developing the impact project Proyecto Semillas, which brought cinema to rural communities in the Peruvian Andes.
He is a graduate of PUCP and holds a Master’s degree in Documentary Film from EICTV in Cuba. He is an Impact Producer, a fellow of Nia Tero Storytelling, and co-founder of the QINE cinema in Cusco.