Assistant Directors

The Peruvian assistant director role grew out of a tight Lima production scene. Studios like Tondero, Big Bang, Cinesphere, Inca Producciones, and Audiovisual Project Perú feed ADs into the local feature ladder. That ladder sits behind Asu Mare 1 and 2, today's Peruvian theatrical comedies and dramas. It also carries the global features and documentaries that move through Cusco, the Sacred Valley, Machu Picchu, the Amazon, and the Pacific coast.

Our 1st ADs and 2nd ADs come from that lineage. Many trained through the PUCP and Universidad de Lima film programmes and the Toulouse Lautrec audiovisual track. They hold credits on Netflix LATAM originals, Disney+ LATAM tourism content, Discovery Channel, National Geographic, and BBC nature units.

They prepare day-out-of-days, strip boards, and shooting orders around a hard reality: three ecosystems in one schedule. Sea-level Lima days give way to 3,400-metre Cusco days that need acclimatisation built into prep. Amazon basin days ride river transport and weather windows out of Iquitos and Manu. Because Peru runs no film-specific union, the 1st AD also holds the compliance line. That covers SUNAFIL labour checks, the Ley 29783 occupational-safety register, and SCTR workplace-insurance verification on every shooting day.

On the floor, the AD department is bilingual by default. Spanish and English come as standard, with Quechua and Aymara bridge support arranged through community liaisons on Andean village days. Our 1st ADs run set control, director teamwork, and walkie discipline in both languages. The 2nd AD desk holds call sheets, talent movement, background running, and the INC and SERNANP heritage forms that must clear before the lock-up goes in.

Heritage work sits at the core. Machu Picchu brings a strict daily visitor cap and tripod limits. Other heritage sites add their own rules — Cusco's centro histórico colonial grid, the Sacred Valley sites at Pisac and Ollantaytambo, Chan Chan in Trujillo, and the Nazca Lines aerial perimeter. These shoots get ADs who already know the INC lead times and shooting-hour windows. They also match the schedule to the DAFO Ley 26370 grant certification flow that the line producer tracks in parallel. For multi-unit features, we field complete AD departments — 1st, 2nd, 2nd 2nd, key set PAs, and crowd marshals — across main, splinter, second, and aerial units. Each plan builds in altitude acclimatisation days and Lima-first scheduling to protect turnover.