El Galpón (elgalpon.espacio, or, El Galpón Espacio) is an independent, self-managed space in Lima dedicated to contemporary and dissident cinematic practices, emerging from a collective site of artistic creation with a nineteen-year history. Its programme brings together cinema, performance, and critical thought, fostering encounters between artists and diverse communities.

We spoke with Diana Daf Collazos, El Galpón’s co-founder and discussed the space’s history, its film school, its sociopolitical commitment and its alternative approaches to making, viewing, and inhabiting moving images.

Could you introduce El Galpón and tell us a little about its history? How did it all begin over 19 years ago?

El Galpón is a cultural space and platform for art, education and cultural projects that has existed for almost two decades. It began quite organically: a group of artists discovered the space in order to stage a multidisciplinary play, and once the season ended, we began asking ourselves what would become of the venue. At first, we used the space primarily for rehearsals in theatre, dance and visual arts. Over time, we recognised a very clear need: there were not enough places where artists could present their work, experiment, or simply gather together. Gradually, we began opening up the space.

One of the first major milestones was Videada in 2008, an open call for creators in Lima through which we received all kinds of videos: performance works, experimental films, visual poetry, and more. We received an overwhelming number of submissions and the screening stretched from the afternoon deep into the night.

At the time, terms such as “cultural manager” were not yet commonly used. The term was later institutionalised within academic contexts, and we gradually came to identify with that framework, referring to ourselves as cultural managers as well.

Where is El Galpón?

El Galpón is located in Pueblo Libre, a district which, twenty years ago, was not recognised as a centre of cultural activity – most of the city’s artistic life was concentrated in Miraflores and Barranco. In some ways, our presence contributed to decentralising that scene towards another part of Lima. Our proximity to several universities also helped attract a younger audience.

How did you discover the space and transform it into El Galpón? 

We came across the space while walking through Pueblo Libre. One of the artists involved in the project, Diego Molina, noticed a “For Rent” sign, and we decided to take over the building. At the time, it was completely abandoned: filled with pigeon droppings, extremely dirty, and lacking electricity or even basic amenities. We transformed it slowly, through fundraising efforts and our own labour.

A decisive moment came in 2019, when we received a grant from the Ministry of Culture aimed at supporting independent cinemas. This allowed us to make significant improvements: installing a professional electrical system, raising the ceiling, purchasing equipment, adding a second accessible restroom, and upgrading the screening infrastructure. Since 2021, the cinema-focused area of the project has been known as elgalpon.saladecine, while elgalpon.espacio remains the name of the broader space and platform.

One important aspect is that we never wanted the space to become rigid or fixed. Over time, it has taken many forms: with chairs, armchairs, bleachers, or sometimes no furniture at all. Today, we think of it as a multipurpose and adaptable venue of approximately 200 square metres, with a café area, a small lobby, and a spacious hall that hosts screenings, theatre productions, performances, concerts, and many other activities.

How do you describe El Galpón to someone who hasn’t been there yet?

The cinema features movable seating for between 60 and 80 people. We have a five-metre screen, a 5,000-lumen laser projector, and stereo sound with the possibility of 5.1 surround sound. The experience aims to approximate that of a commercial cinema, although we still face certain limitations regarding soundproofing, and occasionally street noise filters into the space.

Beyond the technical aspects, however, we want the experience of watching a film at El Galpón to remain physical and communal – a place where people come together and share time and space with others, and a place where conversation, conviviality, and the possibility of lingering afterwards become part of the experience itself.

How do you and your colleagues collaborate in the day-to-day management of El Galpón?

We currently have six members, three of whom are founding members. Our organisational structure is relatively horizontal. Although there are formal roles, in practice responsibilities are distributed according to interests, skills, and availability. None of us receives a salary for running the project. We are only paid fees when we manage specific funded initiatives. This mode of organisation responds not only to practical necessity, but also to a political decision: care, collaboration, and commitment occupy a central place.

Daily operations range from managing the venue itself to coordinating with groups using the space for theatre, screenings, workshops, or NGO activities. We also handle publicity, audience coordination during screenings, and technical management. One of our partners runs an equipment rental company, which has enabled us to access professional stage lighting, sound systems, and technical support free of charge.

What makes El Galpón a unique cinema?

Independent cinemas are rare in Lima, and commercial theatres rarely sustain Peruvian films in their programmes. At El Galpón, our programme is predominantly Peruvian, with a strong focus on short films, curated around themes and questions. For example, we’ve created programmes on Lima or on migration, bringing together works from different eras and regions to highlight continuities, transformations, and tensions.

Over the years, we’ve received hundreds of shorts from across the country, connecting works from different generations and tracing an audiovisual memory from the margins. Many independent festivals and screening initiatives have found a like-minded space at El Galpón, expanding the programme and affirming the need for spaces that sustain alternative forms of circulation and encounter.

Could you tell us more about Salvajes?

Salvajes is a project we launched in 2022, and this year marks its fourth edition. It emerged from a very concrete need: Peru does not have a public film school, and the few available options are private and prohibitively expensive. This drastically limits who can access film education.

Salvajes proposes approaching cinema from a more organic, auteur-driven perspective. We are interested in forms of filmmaking guided not by industrial logic, but by a necessity for expression. When we speak of “salvaje,” this is precisely what we mean: a more direct relationship to image, body and lived experience. For this reason, we seek participants who are mostly from outside Lima, who often have attended university, who come from diverse backgrounds, who are women or members of the LGBTQI+ community, and who are undertaking deeply personal journeys. We are also interested in participants who are already cultural managers within their own communities. Over successive editions, this commitment to decentralisation has intensified. This year, moreover, the call for applications is expanding across Ibero-America, with the aim of encouraging participation from outside major urban centres. 

The impact of Salvajes extends far beyond education; it has become a living network of cinematic practice across different territories, where cinema becomes activated as a collective, situated, and constantly evolving practice.

How do you view the intersection of film spaces with other practices such as activism, performance, or writing?

El Galpón has never been merely a film space, but rather a place where multiple practices coexist: performance, the performing arts, visual art, and activism. The way we programme and conceive projects is inseparable from the ways each of us works, relates to others, and moves through our personal lives. Many of us come from backgrounds connected to feminist, LGBTQI+, or human rights collectives. It is not a matter of programming cinema on one side and activism on the other; rather, everything forms part of the same ecosystem.This intersection generates something we value deeply: a diversity of audiences, languages, and working methods. 

In this sense, cinema does not appear as an isolated language, but as something in constant dialogue with the body, with presence, and with the performative. Very often, what takes place within the space cannot be separated into projection on the one hand and shared experience on the other.

What are your programming strategies?

At first, we approached programming in a relatively traditional manner, with different people responsible for different months, but not for long. We soon shifted towards collective curation, which remains our approach today. Someone proposes a theme, a question, or a particular line of interest, and from there the rest of the team contributes further films and perspectives. Then comes a shortlist, followed by a more refined selection process in which not only the films themselves matter, but also their sequencing, rhythm, and the atmosphere created by the programme as an experience. The same team is also responsible for design, promotion, and production. 

We do not screen commercial films. We recognise that doing so might attract larger audiences, but it would also fundamentally alter the identity of the space. Furthermore, our screenings are free, which makes them accessible while simultaneously creating significant challenges for sustainability. Maintaining a free programme over such a long period is not only a financial challenge, but also a political decision: we believe access to cinema, particularly local cinema, should not depend solely on one’s ability to pay. In this sense, we view screenings as a way of building bridges between films and their communities.

You also organise “An Archive in Motion.” Could you tell us more about this concept?

“An Archive in Motion” is not a concept we originally developed ourselves. It emerged through the screening of a film – The Bastard Archive – whose team created a touring campaign under that title and included our space as part of it.

Nevertheless, even before encountering the term, our programming had always maintained a close relationship with archival practices. We are interested in rescuing materials that have rarely been seen, that never properly circulated, or that remained confined to highly specific contexts such as academia. By placing these short films in dialogue with contemporary works within the same programme, the archive ceases to function merely as a document of the past and instead becomes a constellation of images that, through their encounter with the present, are reactivated and generate new meanings.

Could you tell us about your funding sources?

Over the course of nearly twenty years, our funding sources have been highly diverse, though for the most part they have relied on competitive grants. We have worked with the Ministry of Culture, Ibermedia, and the Municipality of Lima, among others, while also establishing partnerships with institutions such as the Spanish Cultural Center, the University of the Pacific, the Pontifical Catholic University, and various cultural organisations.

Yet, almost all of these funds are directed towards specific projects – training, production, or exhibition – rather than towards sustaining spaces themselves, such as paying rent. We have had to combine multiple strategies: grants, partnerships, renting the space to other projects, and even non-monetary contributions. At present, keeping the space open is more difficult than ever. The constant rise in rent, combined with Peru’s political and economic instability, has drastically reduced funding opportunities within the cultural sector. El Galpón exists in an extremely fragile position: its future is by no means guaranteed. We believe deeply in what it creates and in the necessity of spaces like this, while at the same time, we have begun imagining the possibility of closing the physical venue and continuing as a travelling project.

In many ways, it has been the artistic community itself that has enabled the space to survive over time; the space hosts theatre performances, workshops, rehearsals, and other activities, and this income contributes directly to covering rent and utilities. 

Could you tell us about your collaborations with other initiatives in the region?

For several years now, we have worked through a decentralised approach. Initially, this meant leaving our own venue and organising projects elsewhere in Lima: in the city centre, in public spaces in Pueblo Libre, in Pachacámac, and even at archaeological sites. Over time, we began forging connections with other cities – Trujillo, Arequipa, Cusco, Iquitos – and this helped us realise that El Galpón did not need to exist solely as a physical venue, but could also function as a network, a mobile way of working.

Now, with the support of Ibermedia, we are also beginning to work on an Ibero-American scale. We are interested in imagining these connections from the peripheries: between southern Peru and Bolivia, for example, or between northern Peru and Ecuador. There are territorial and cultural affinities that allow us to envision more organic forms of collaboration, even before the emergence of large-scale international co-productions.

For us, the commons is not an abstract concept, but something built through practice: through the ways we organise ourselves, share resources, and create spaces in which more collaborative and less hierarchical modes of working can exist. And in contexts such as ours, where such possibilities cannot be taken for granted, their existence becomes not only important, but urgent.

Diana Daf Collazos is a Peruvian filmmaker, artist, and cultural practitioner. She is co-founder of elgalpon.espacio in Lima, where she develops elgalpon.saladecine, an independent cinema space, and Salvajes, a film school. She holds a Master’s degree in Creative Documentary from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Her work lies at the intersection of cinema and performance, with a focus on documentary, autofictional, and expanded cinema practices. She has initiated and collaborated on pedagogical platforms, laboratories, encounters, and seminars both locally and internationally. Her practice explores the relationships between body, memory, and image, as well as the creation of non-hegemonic visualities and narratives.

In addition to Diana Daf Collazos, the other members are: Jorge Tadeo Baldeón, Lorena Peña, Liliana Albornoz, Igor Moreno, and Diana Castro.