BIOGRAPHY

Ernesto Sánchez Valdés (Havana, 1983)

Ernesto is a Cuban documentary filmmaker and assistant director. He moved in to Sweden in 2016.

He did his studies in the Faculty for Radio, TV and Film at the University of Arts at Havana (Instituto Superior de Arte, ISA) in the specialty of film director. He graduated in 2015.

Ernesto has a longtime experience as 1st and 2nd assistant director, working in several long feature films, short films and documentaries in cuban and international productions. Since he moved in to Sweden he had been working as 1st AD in several productions.

His documentary filmmaker career started in Cuba and he directed 3 documentaries there. Among them his latest finished documentary, Cult hero (2015) got good reviews among the film critics as well as different film awards in Cuban film festivals. Cult hero is about the representation of the image of Jose Marti, Cuba’s national hero, through the mass production process of his busts. This film was the first film produced by OLOFILMS productions.

Once settled in Sweden, Ernesto has kept working on his career as documentary filmmaker and nowadays he works in two different projects:

Do you see me? which is about the skin bleaching situation in Kampala, Uganda and Life and death in Kasensero which got research support from Konstnärsnämnden, Filmbasen and Transit Inkubator. The film is about the history of Kasensero; a fishermen town in south Uganda and the relation of its villager with their history, their past as well as life and death.

Alongside his work as a filmmaker, Ernesto has been working as casting assistant at Casting STHLM and as film teacher at Röda Korsets Folkhögskolan since 2016 and at Biskops Arnö Dokumentärskola since 2018.

EDUCATION

  2015

 Film Degree, University of Arts, Havana