Ícaros

After many years of life marked by PTSD, men and women veterans of the wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq travel to the Peruvian Amazon to participate in shamanic ceremonies to heal their traumas.

Filmed in the jungles of Peru, shaman Don Jose Campos introduces the practices and benefits of Ayahuasca, the psychoactive plant brew that has been used for healing and visionary journeys by Amazonian shamans for at least a thousand years.

In June 2010, French actress Marion Cotillard spent a week in the heart of the tropical forests of the Democratic Republic of Congo with members of Greenpeace France and Greenpeace Africa. She delivers in video a strong testimony on the looting of Congolese forests which benefits a few industrial groups, often European.

The story of the evolution of tropical rain forests, their recent and rapid destruction, and the intense efforts of scientists to understand them even as they disappear. This film gives viewers a better appreciation of the importance of tropical rain forests on a global scale.

In these interviews, Dennis McKenna, Alex Grey, Rick Strassman, and other champions of psychedelics share their views on the value of psychedelic medicine, and its neglect in Western society.

This documentary examines ayahuasca shamanism near Iquitos (a metropolis in the Peruvian Amazon), and the tourism it has attracted. The filmmakers talk with two ayahuasqueros, Percy Garcia and Ron Wheelock, as well as ayuahuasca tourists and local people connected with the ayahuasca industry.

The Shipibo-Konibo people of Peruvian Amazon decorate their pottery, jewelry, textiles, and body art with complex geometric patterns called kené. These patterns also have corresponding songs, called icaros, which are integral to the Shipibo way of life. This documentary explores these unique art forms, and one Shipibo family's efforts to safeguard the tradition.

Inspired by an exclusive interview and performance footage of Chavela Vargas shot in 1991 and guided by her unique voice, the film weaves an arresting portrait of a woman who dared to dress, speak, sing, and dream her unique life into being.

A personal, scientific, mystical exploration of Amazonian curanderismo, focus on Ayahuasca and Master Plants, their healing and visionary properties and risks, along with the Shipibo people and their songs.

Don Emilio is a humble, 63-year-old man who lives in the Amazon rainforest, seven miles from the city of Iquitos, Peru. For all of his adult life he has worked as a curandero and vegetalista, a traditional healer. He estimates that in his career he has treated more than 2,500 clients. Through the camera lens of anthropologist Luis Eduardo Luna, Don Emilio tells us about his practice, his beliefs, his community, and his life. He shows us how he prepares ayahuasca and other herbal medicines. Finally, we see Don Emilio treat a man who has come to him for help, and hear from a poor woman who has brought her infant son for medical care.

This is the story of a tiny country that made a decision to do something that no other country had ever done -- it decided to abolish its army and declare peace to the world. And this is the story of a young boy who grew up in that country, and how he ended up challenging -- and sometimes even convincing -- the greatest powers in the world to follow Costa Rica's example. "Oscar Arias: Without a Shot Fired" is a Don Quixote-like saga with great historical touchstones -- Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, Cold War politics and Communism, Central American War and Peace. It follows a slight, academic, and most unlikely hero over the course of more than fifty years, as he travels the world in a quest to stop the spread of the weapons of war. In the end, it is a story about the triumph of reason, of the sparrow triumphing over the eagle, and how the impossible dream can sometimes come true.

Back in 2012 I had my very first Ayahuasca ceremony and, needless to say, I was terrified. But it ended up entirely changing my life and that of my future family. Which is why I decided to revisit the medicine in 2018, participating in three Ayahuasca ceremonies over the course of one week in Costa Rica, and document the process. In the film, we tackle my personal story of trying to build London Real into a global media and transformation company while also struggling with my own disconnection from friends, family and my own species. We also dive deep into the division and tribalism currently facing all of us around the world.

“Entourage” star Adrian Grenier ventures to Cocos Island off the shore of Costa Rica to bring attention to the plight of endangered sharks who are being threatened by poachers and ocean pollution.

"Time is Art" is ultimately the story of an artist's search for inspiration in a money-driven society that shuns creativity, and of the human search for meaning in a seemingly meaningless world.

A nature documentary centered on a family of chimps living in the Ivory Coast and Ugandan rain forests. Through Oscar, a little chimpanzee, we discover learning about life in the heart of the African tropical forest and follow his first steps in this world with humor, emotion and anguish. Following a tragedy, he finds himself separated from his mother and left alone to face the hostility of the jungle. Until he is picked up by an older chimpanzee, who will take him under her protection.

SHAMANS OF THE AMAZON is a personal account of filmmaker Dean Jefferys as he returns to the Amazon with his partner and one year old daughter. They journey deep into the Ecuadorian rainforest to learn about and experience the ancient ayahuasca healing ceremony. The film brings to the viewer an intimate and fascinating look at the shamans of the Amazon, and the life that is threatened by ecological destruction.

An Independent Film in Costa Rica

On a quest for emotional healing and spiritual awakening, a naturopathic doctor and an accountant join others in the Peruvian Amazon to drink a psychedelic brew called ayahuasca.

Desperate to recover from his depression, Dave travels from his home in British Columbia, Canada to Peru in order to experience the healing effects of the sacred medicine ayahuasca. After Dave spends some time in the country, a Shipibo healer begins to teach him how to work with the medicine more deeply.

The secrets about unlocking the mysteries of consciousness by plant-drugs. The related chances and risks involved in this shamanism. While filming Blueberry, the Secret Experience, Jan Kounen met the Shipibo healers of the Peruvian Amazon and discovered their sacred plant: Ayahuasca, the spirit vine. Deeply affected by this experience, he decided to return to Peru to shoot a documentary on the plant and the medicinal rites of the shamans. To this end, he filmed the natives but also met neurologists, philosophers, artists, and chemists working on this subject. He notably interviewed Jean Giraud, the illustrator of Blueberry, and Kary Mullis, winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. More than a traditional documentary, the film is an invitation to travel, a half-open door to another world or another perception of reality. The secrets about unlocking the mysteries of consciousness by plant-drugs. The related chances and risks involved in this shamanism.