From Gustavo:

I have been selected to participate in the UnionDocs Summer Documentary Lab in Brooklyn, New York, to continue developing my first feature-length documentary film: Ice Herders of the Andes. As an aspiring filmmaker living in the Global South, this is an incredible opportunity to engage with renowned mentors and talented filmmakers who are creating inspiring and challenging work.

My film makes a strong case for the need for local voices at the center of global climate discussions and research. It is set in the surroundings of the Quelccaya glacier in the region of Cuzco in Peru -the largest tropical glacier on the planet- and is inspired by anthropological methods that require doing fieldwork along with people where they live. With this film, I am interested in converting into powerful images and narratives the intricate network of relationships that articulate human and non-human worlds in a zone where climate change is materially present, and life is permeated by environmental injustice.

I have received a 50% scholarship from Union Docs, but I still need to raise some funds to cover part of the course fees and travel expenses. Any additional funds will allow me to delve deeper into the creative production of this project. If you can contribute with any amount, I will be enormously thankful.

For almost a decade I have been ethnographically exploring the worlds that are emerging in the high Andes of Peru as the Anthropocene unfolds. My work is principally based in the Quelccaya, the largest tropical glacier on the planet, and articulates an eclectic body of theory, methods, and practices to provide an ethnographically grounded account of those significative moments in which Nature challenges human comprehension and control. In 2014, together with my lifelong friend Tomás Tello –an experimental musician living in Portugal— I founded the Sonic Melting collective to start producing a set of field recordings of the ice of the Quelccaya as it melts. These recordings offer a sonic narration of our encounter with the Quelccaya and seek to present an alternative approach to the complexity of the Anthropocene: namely, one which is not limited by visuality.

You can experience some of my previous work here:

If a glacier melts on a mountain, does anyone hear it?

About the Summer Documentary Labs:

The UnionDocs Summer Documentary Lab are a program for a select group of media artists from the US and abroad. Based in one of NYC’s most exciting neighborhoods, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the Summer Labs offer a platform for participants to spend the Summer making strides and clarify the creative direction of their projects to attract the potential team members, funders and producers they need to find their way to the finish. With a specialized hybrid in-person / remote format, an intensive schedule of screenings, open seminar discussions, weekly industry “field trips,” and inspiring artist visits from some of the most dynamic voices across the field of documentary, the SUMMER DOCUMENTARY LABS are tightly structured environments that bring participants into a select group of emerging filmmakers to get challenged and encouraged to think through every aspect of their works-in-progress.

Drawing inspiration from across disciplines, this intensive program should not be mistaken for an industrial, journalistic, or traditional documentary training. Scholar Scott MacDonald highlighted in The New York Times that, “UnionDocs has a healthy sense that the older definitions of what constitutes ‘experimental’ cinema and what constitutes ‘documentary’ are up for grabs.” Much emphasis is placed on workshopping lab participants’ writing about their projects as a way to both clarify the creative direction and attract potential team members, funders and producers. Participants receive focused, honest and helpful feedback on their project proposals from prominent documentary artists and industry experts.

The Research & Development Lab is a space for projects to grow while in their earliest stages. When a project is still largely a concept or idea, the lab helps filmmakers solidify the ideas with efforts, assignments, and conversations around best practices for grounding the project in its early stages of writing. This moment of focus can help set up projects for success from these nascent beginnings all the way through from funding to production to distribution.