Private Project

STEEL LIFE

Is it Perú a nation? VIDA FERREA is a film journey about the Central Peruvian Railway during the week of Peru’s most important national holiday, Independence Day, July 28th. The train goes through steep gradients, carrying minerals from Cerro de Pasco, at 4380 m of altitude, one of the highest cities in the world, to the Port of Callao in the Ocean Pacific shore. As the train passes through the main stations along its route, the story will touch upon the lives of individual Peruvians who live in those cities. Peruvians who, despite sharing the same railway, have different experiences and daily lives, each one on different journeys. Along the way we find a century old bar that refuses to disappear, a nurse who tries to safe children with so much lead in their blood that they will not make it through a metal detector, and a city that devours itself along with the memories and health of the people who live in it. All these stories develop within the proud celebrations of our “independence”, which happened 200 years ago, mix with the people’s feeling that few things have changed, and their disbelief over the state institutions.

  • Manuel Bauer
    Director
  • Manuel Bauer
    Writer
  • Carlos Cardenas
    Producer
    Lucanamarca, La Cantuta en la Boca del Diablo
  • Alejandro Lazaro
    Producer
  • Project Title (Original Language):
    VIDA FERREA
  • Project Type:
    Documentary
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 35 minutes 21 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    October 21, 2021
  • Production Budget:
    110,800 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Peru
  • Country of Filming:
    Peru
  • Language:
    Spanish
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Manuel Bauer


Manuel Bauer was born in Lima, Perú, in 1974. He graduated in Communication Sciences at Lima University in 1997. Later he won a Fulbright scholarship to pursue an MA in Film at the New School University, in New York, from 1998 to year 2000, where he studied with Allan Berliner and discovered documentary from a new perspective . That year he moved to Madrid, Spain, and started working at the editorial department of several feature documentaries and fiction films. Among the directors he has worked with are Marcelo Piñeyro, David Baute, Belén Macías, Melina León and Alex de la Iglesia.

As a director he shot short films: Eating Dreams, Short, The Soul Extractor, La Novena (finalist at a Canal Plus Contest “YO NO SOY DE AQUÍ”) and Uprooted (which let him participate at Berlinale’s Talent Campus 2007). Vida Ferrea is his first feature film.

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