Alvaro Sarmiento is a Quechua descendant filmmaker, founder of HDPERU, a non-profit organization engaged in the production of films in defense of native peoples’ rights and environmental conservation in the Andes and the Amazon of Peru.
During his career Alvaro has received numerous prizes and fellowships, including the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center, MacDowell, IBERMEDIA Script Development Fund and the Carolina Foundation Residency for screenwriters. His films are regularly screened in film festivals, museums, and universities, including the MoMA, Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, American Museum of Natural History, Haus der Kulturen der Welt - Berlin, among others.
Green River. The Time of the Yakurunas (2017) was his feature debut and premiered at the 67 Berlin Film Festival and the MoMA Doc Fortnight. The documentary is a poetic journey into the depths of the Amazon, which explores the perception of time in three small villages that live in close symbiosis with the river.
Mothers of the Land (2019) is his second feature documentary and it premiered at the 69 Berlin Film Festival. The film is related to resilience, inclusive economies, and women farmer’s adaptive capacities facing climate change difficulties in the Andes.
Alvaro studied media, communications science and film at the Universidad de Lima in Peru, Estacio de Sa University in Brazil, and received an M.F.A. in filmmaking at the Ohio State University.
