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.
This film is an initiatory journey among the Fangs of Gabon and the Shipibos of Peru. With the sound of traditional instruments like the mogongo (arc in the mouth), the holy harp, and the Icaros, we discover the traditional peoples’ wisdom.
Documentary about the most popular music of the Andes -- Huayno music -- and explores the lives of three Huayno musicians in a contemporary Peru torn between the military and the Shining Path guerrillas.
Documentary presenting the theory and application of the Theology of Liberation via interviews to priests from humble parishes in the slums of Lima. A fruitful labor of a Catholic Church sector committed to address social issues.
Dramatic testimony of Gregorio Condori Mamani, who works as a porter in Cusco, Peru. Despite the huge effort they make everyday for a few coins, porters fall and find death in the streets.
An experimental documentary short about the terrorism in Peru in 1986. Using archive footage, the director deconstructs the massacre in a successive historical actions choreography and an atmospheric sound mix alternating the imminence of both the massacre and the oblivion.
A portrait of Peruvian curandero Agustin Rivas-Vazques, revealed primarily through stationary-camera interviews.
A devastating mercury spill by the world's richest gold mining corporation transforms a quiet peasant village in Peru's Andean mountains into a hotbed of civil resistance. A courageous young mayor emerges to lead his people on a quest for health care and justice. But powerful interests conspire to thwart the villagers at every turn in this 2-year epic chronicle of the real price of gold.
Josephine has all her life been told that her Peruvian aunt Augusta died in an armed struggle for the rights of the poor. As an adult Josefin decides to find out the truth about the legendary Augusta.
Anthropologist and filmmaker João Meirinhos travels in Peruvian Amazonia to speak with healers who work with the plant medicine ayahuasca. The journey begins on the outskirts of Puerto Maldonado in southeastern Peru, and winds northward to Pucallpa and Iquitos.
Deep in the Andean mountains lays a mysterious ruin named Machu Picchu. For 400 years it sat abandoned on its misty cliff, the quintessential lost city in the jungle. Rediscovered in 1911, it contained no written records or carvings, nothing that could shed light on its history. For a century since, it has defied the endless scores of visitors and scientists who attempted to understand its purpose. Who were the mysterious people who built it and why did they build it here? Today an international team of archeologists, engineers and scientists are finally piecing together the clues. Together they are discovering astonishing new burials, revealing the intricacies of its ingenious engineering and finally decoding the secrets of Machu Picchu.
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.
Peru is a country steeped in cultural traditions that stretch back more than 1,000 years. But it's also a land of surprising natural riches.
Shipibo healer Ricardo Amaringo describes how he prepares, teaches, and shares the plant medicine ayahuasca. Olivia and Julian Arévalo sing examples of icaros (healing songs) in the Shipibo language.
The tombs of the grand lords of Moche civilization - one of Peru's most important pre-Hispanic civilizations -- are in constant danger from grave robbers, but archeologist Walter Alva has managed to find some priceless treasures and recreate the lives of this ancient people of northern Peru.
The true story of Joe Simpson and Simon Yates' disastrous and nearly-fatal mountain climb of 6,344m Siula Grande in the Cordillera Huayhuash in the Peruvian Andes in 1985.
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.
In the late 1980's, during Peru's bloody internal conflict, an American couple traveled through the countryside looking for alternative healers to treat the woman's terminal illness. On that fateful trip, they vanished completely. At the time, local authorities claimed they had been kidnapped and killed by communist insurgents of the Shining Path movement. 20 years later, their son retraces their steps in an intriguing and sometime bizarre trip to visit Shamans in Andean remote villages as well as deep in the Amazon jungle. Matt is looking for people that might have known his parents, and undergoes some of the same treatments his mother had received. Ruta del Jaca is a kaleidoscopic film that blurs the distinction between documentary and fiction. The spectacular beauty of the Peruvian countryside is splashed throughout the feature. A special role is reserved for the immensely popular "Folklor" singer Sonia Morales.
After years of suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, six US veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan travel to Peru on a quest for healing. With the help and guidance of three brothers who are traditional healers, they take ayahuasca and other plant medicines during a 10-day retreat in the Amazon rainforest.
Documentary recorded on a family trip to Chancay in July 2024. Edited in April 2025.