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Documentary Outreach Guatemala.
Four weeks on location at Lake Atitlán. You research, film, and edit a short documentary in direct collaboration with a locally-led changemaker organisation.
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Four weeks on location at Lake Atitlán. You research, film, and edit a short documentary in direct collaboration with a locally-led changemaker organisation.
The Destination
Lake Atitlán sits in the Guatemalan Highlands, ringed by three volcanoes and a dozen villages. Each village has its own distinct Maya culture, language, and textile tradition. It is one of the most visually striking places in Central America, and one of the most complex.
The region has a deep history of resilience. Indigenous communities here have spent decades navigating economic inequality, land rights, and the preservation of cultural identity. It is also home to a growing network of locally-led social enterprises and nonprofits doing serious work on education, agriculture, women's empowerment, and environmental conservation.
This is the environment your crew works in. Four weeks on location, embedded with a changemaker organisation, making a film that matters to the people in it.
What's Included
$4,750
USD per person · accommodation included
Cost does not include round-trip airfare, visa, personal meals, or travel insurance. Travel insurance is required.
Week By Week
Over four weeks at Lake Atitlán, you move through every stage of documentary production. Each week builds on the last.
Week One
You arrive and get straight to work. From the first day, the crew is in the field: briefings, screenings, hands-on exercises, and time spent with the people and places you will eventually film. You are not assigned a story. You go looking for one. By the end of the week you have a protagonist and a story you want to spend the next three weeks telling.
Week Two
Turn what you have learned into a working plan. With your crew you shape the story, build an outline, and map out how it will be told. Before moving into the main film, you produce a short micro-documentary together. You learn how your crew communicates, makes decisions, and works under pressure before the stakes get higher.
Week Three
You are in it. Filming real life as it unfolds, working with your storyholder and collaborators, making creative decisions in the field as things shift around you. Each evening, the crew reviews the day's work, gets feedback, and adjusts. The story begins to take shape.
Week Four
You bring it together. From rough cut to picture lock, with the Production Manager alongside you the whole way. The film screens publicly at the end of the trip, for the community and for the people who trusted you with their story. You leave with a finished documentary and a production process you can lead on your next project.
From Past Crew
I think I learned more in those three weeks than I did all of the last two semesters in university. I really liked having the opportunity to play multiple roles in the movie making process that I might not have been able to try anywhere else.
Samuel Scott
Documentary Outreach · Guatemala
Being in Guatemala and working in such a remote community was incredible. I felt as though we really got to know the community and their leaders and build meaningful relationships. Learning so much about Mayan cosmology was just incredible and so unexpected.
Nikki Watson
Documentary Outreach · Guatemala
After this experience, I feel equipped to organize a documentary project by myself and confident that I can tell a compelling story that the community in question also wants to share.
Ilse Meijer
Documentary Outreach · Guatemala
Documentary Outreach Application
Step 1 of 4
Select one or both. You can be considered for multiple programmes.
Please select at least one trip.
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Include country code.
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Step 2 of 4
Answer directly. Specific, human details beat polished, generated ones.
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Step 3 of 4
Help us understand your comfort level and how you like to work.
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Select all that apply.
Please select at least one role.
Step 4 of 4
A few optional links and one last question.
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Submitting your application…
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