Chema Sarmiento

Director, scriptwriter and audiovisual producer, he was born in the village of Albares de la Ribera, in the Leonese region of El Bierzo. A resident of Paris since the mid-1970s, he graduated in Philosophy from the Angelicum Institute in Santander and obtained a degree in Art History from the University of Valladolid. Subsequently, he studied Film Directing and Editing at the Institut des Hautes Études de Cinématographie de Paris (IDHEC). In 1981 he made his film debut with ‘Los montes’, a medium-length film halfway between fiction and reality, which was his final project at the IDHEC. The film was selected for the Cannes Film Festival and nominated for the French César awards for Best Documentary, as well as receiving numerous prizes at international competitions.

In 1984 he directed his first feature film, ‘El filandón’, starring writers Luis Mateo Díaz, Pedro Trapiello, Antonio Pereira, José María Merino and Julio Llamazares. This work, screened in the documentary section of the 29th Seminci, was also selected for the San Sebastian, Oporto and Belford festivals, where it won the Jury Prize and the Audience Award.

After ‘El filandón’, he directed the short film ‘Vers un nouveau monde’ (1988), followed in 1989 by the documentary ‘Ancares. Homenaje al viento’ (awarded at the Ethnographic Festival of Huesca), the institutional film ‘La Dordogne’ (1990) and the short films ‘La Voiture incolore’, ‘Le Coup de tête’, La Main dans la main’ and ‘A l’ombre de l’espoir’ (1991).

In the following years he shot six documentaries for the Franco-German channel ARTE (‘Séville, parfum de nards et de narcisses’, ‘Sierra de Ancares’, ‘La Dame Blanche des Pyrénées’, ‘Les Cathares’ and ‘Apocalypse et fin du monde’), as well as the series ‘Mahomet’, which was a hit with audiences. His second fiction feature film was ‘Viene una chica’ (2011), premiered in the Castilla y León en Largo section of the 56th Seminci.

In addition to being an editor, scriptwriter, producer and director, he has also had a long career as a teacher at the national film school in France (La Fémis), where he has taught filmmaking and scriptwriting.