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Pachacútec, The Improbable School [Trailer]

Pachacútec, The Improbable School is a medium length documentary by filmmaker Mariano Carranza (Lima, Peru. 1989). This non-fiction, produced in collaboration with the chef Gastón Acurio, tells the case of three Peruvian chefs for whom a school in an underprivileged neighborhood of Lima paved the way for them to succeed in their profession.

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In a remote place, in the outskirts of Lima, in a very low-income neighborhood, there is a school that the whims of fate decided it should exist: The Pachacútec Cooking School. For over 15 years, this unique culinary school has transformed the lives of more than 400 cooks, giving them a skillset that has helped them escape poverty in which they lived and filling their lives with dreams, thus forging a new generation of Peruvian chefs.

This documentary film tells the stories of three young school graduates, who today are successful around the world. In San Francisco, what started as an internship led Jhosmery to the position of pastry chef at a respected Peruvian restaurant. In Luxembourg, Gerson takes the reins of a restaurant with modernist ambitions. And in Lima, Alan runs a successful ceviche business. Everyone saw gastronomy as an opportunity to get ahead.