Ancestral Secrets (Ep 4: In the Heart of South America)

You need to be logged in to view the full version of this film (You must currently work for a TV broadcaster or be a content buyer to register). Fill out the contact form and we’ll send you an username and password.

Back to Episode List

The heart of South America hides a secret. Behind the thick vegetation and mighty rivers, indigenous communities preserve their ancestral knowledge. In the Brazilian Amazon, the Huni Kuin cultivate medicinal practices that are classified by the West as prohibited drugs. The rite of “Shururumá”, which is the constant consumption of marijuana during a music and dance ceremony, has allowed them to have a permanent connection with the forest. That culminates with an ayahuasca night. The Mbyás - a branch of the Guaraní people - inhabit the forest in Paraguay. The reduction, disappearance, and contamination of their spaces as a result of transnational soybean cultivation has them under threat of disappearing. For a whole night, in the darkness of a hut, the Mbyás will gather to celebrate a rite never before unveiled: the Opú ceremony. It is your last hope in the face of its extinction. After 400 years of colonization, the peoples of central South America still resist.

La Ventana Cine
Directed by: 
Jota Loyola Crovetto
Chile / Colombia
2021
6x52' or 12x26'
HD
Languages: 
Spanish / (English Subtitles)