Ayahuasca documentaries and films: a sourced guide to what each one shows

THE SHORT VERSION · SWIPE

▶ Watch it as a 20-second video

‹›

Films have shaped how many people first hear about ayahuasca, a traditional Amazonian brew that contains DMT. This guide lists notable documentaries and films that feature it, with each title’s year and director checked against a festival record, a cinema listing or a published review. It also notes how each film frames the brew. This is media literacy, not a viewing or use recommendation.

Which ayahuasca documentaries and films are notable?

We left out films whose year and director we could not confirm from a festival record, a cinema listing or a published review, including several titles that appear mainly on screening-event pages. Inclusion here is not an endorsement. Evidence: established for the credits as listed in the sources below.

What does each ayahuasca documentary cover?

Other Worlds (D’autres mondes), 2004

A Paris cinema guide lists the French documentary as directed by Jan Kounen, 73 minutes long, released in France on 30 June 2004 by the distributor Eurozoom. Its synopsis describes Kounen meeting Kestenbetsa, a Shipibo spiritual leader, and filming a solstice ceremony that had reportedly not been held for about 70 years and was closed to outsiders. The film sets out to challenge common misconceptions about shamanism (Offi, D’autres mondes). Evidence: established for the credits.

A statement from Kounen about the project, posted by Arthur Magazine in 2005, describes a deliberately personal and subjective film placed between Western science and Indigenous healing knowledge. In it he also stressed the risk of psychological breakdown without competent guidance and said he wanted to avoid a New Age tone (Arthur Magazine, 2005). The framing is sympathetic but not uncritical. Evidence: established for what the statement says; the framing is our reading.

DMT: The Spirit Molecule, 2010

This documentary is about DMT more than ayahuasca. A review of its 2010 festival screening names Austin filmmaker Mitch Schultz as director and describes a film centred on Rick Strassman’s 1990s DMT study, contrasting US drug policy with more tolerant approaches elsewhere, including ayahuasca ceremonies. The reviewer called it strongly pro-psychedelic and said it left out possible negative effects; Schultz acknowledged those risks in the post-screening discussion, according to the review (Slackerwood, 2010). Our article on DMT: The Spirit Molecule, the book and the film checks its claims against later research. Evidence: established for the review’s account.

Vine of the Soul: Encounters with Ayahuasca, 2010

Directed by Richard Meech, this documentary explores ayahuasca through anthropologists studying its traditional shamanic uses and scientists investigating it as a possible addiction treatment, according to a 2011 screening listing that calls it a new documentary (MAPS, 2011). That listing was published by a psychedelic-advocacy organization, so it is a description, not a review. A 2023 film-studies thesis at Lund University chose it, dated 2010, as one of two case studies of the “ayahuasca documentary” as a genre (Nalvarte Nunez, 2023). Evidence: established for the director; the 2010 date rests on the thesis record, and we found no independent review or festival record.

Aya: Awakenings, 2013

A TV Guide listing credits Rak Razam and Timothy Parish as directors of this 101-minute documentary, adapted from Razam’s book. Its synopsis describes Razam travelling to the Amazon to look at the growing commercial trade in shamanic healing, a clash between older traditions and modern demand, and Western spiritual tourists seeking visionary experiences (TV Guide). The Lund thesis used it as its second case study and included an interview with Razam (Nalvarte Nunez, 2023). Evidence: established for the credits.

The Last Shaman, 2017

Directed by Raz Degan and produced with Appian Way, this 77-minute documentary follows a young American struggling with depression who travels to the Amazon and takes ayahuasca. On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes it holds a 44% critics’ score from 9 reviews (Rotten Tomatoes). Evidence: established for the credits and score as listed on 21 October 2026.

The listed reviews diverge. As summarised on that page, the Los Angeles Times found it a fascinating and sometimes frightening introduction to ayahuasca; the New York Times reviewer had doubts about the brew’s commercialization; and The Hollywood Reporter found the storytelling hazy (Rotten Tomatoes). The film tells one person’s story, which is not evidence about depression treatment. Evidence: established for the review summaries; we read the summaries, not the full reviews.

Is there an ayahuasca movie, not just documentaries?

Yes. Icaros: A Vision, directed by Leonor Caraballo and Matteo Norzi, had its world premiere in the International Narrative Competition at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival. Tribeca lists it as a 91-minute drama about an American woman who travels to the Amazon, joins ayahuasca healing ceremonies and forms a bond with a young Indigenous shaman facing difficulties of his own (Tribeca, 2016). As fiction, it dramatizes rather than documents. Evidence: established for the credits.

Jan Kounen returned to the subject in 2019 with a short virtual-reality work. Tribeca lists Ayahuasca by Kounen in its 2019 Virtual Arcade, at 12 minutes, as a world premiere tagged animation, experimental and documentary (Tribeca, 2019). IDFA lists Ayahuasca: Kosmik Journey at 18 minutes, also as a world premiere, in exhibition and planetarium-dome versions, describing it as recreating ayahuasca visions from Shipibo ceremonies (IDFA, 2019). The two listings differ on runtime and premiere, probably because they describe different versions. Evidence: established that both festivals showed it; the discrepancy is unresolved.

A VR rendering is one artist’s interpretation of reported visions. Our article on DMT art and visionary art explains why images cannot capture what people report. Evidence: established that it is an artistic work.

Is there an ayahuasca documentary on Netflix?

None of the sources we checked lists any film in this guide as a Netflix title, and the aggregator page for The Last Shaman listed other services, not Netflix, when we read it. Streaming catalogues change by country and month, so we do not list where to watch any film and include no streaming links. Evidence: unresolved, because availability changes.

How do ayahuasca documentaries frame the brew?

Three framings recur in the films above. Promotional films present the brew mainly as healing or awakening and say little about risk. Critical films question commercialization, tourism or the claims made for it. Ethnographic films centre Indigenous and traditional practitioners and their own terms. Many films mix all three. The Lund thesis argued that the genre invites viewers to reflect on other realities and presents ancient knowledge in contemporary, accessible terms (Nalvarte Nunez, 2023). Evidence: preliminary; this is one master’s thesis and our own reading.

1. Who is speaking? Note whether Indigenous practitioners speak for themselves or are filmed as a backdrop for a visitor’s story.
2. Is it one person’s journey? A single story, however moving, cannot show how often anything happens.
3. Are risks shown? Look for medical screening, drug interactions and people for whom it went badly.
4. Who made and promoted it? Check whether the makers or screening hosts have an advocacy or commercial stake.
5. Does it separate claims from evidence? Compare what the film says with what controlled studies found.

Coverage can shape behaviour. In a survey of 209 adults entering New York City nightclubs, 21% said media coverage of MDMA’s medical benefits made them more likely to use it, and 10% said the same of ketamine; the largest group said coverage made no difference (Palamar and Le, 2022). That study did not cover ayahuasca or films, and its answers were self-reported. Evidence: preliminary.

Where can you check what films claim?

Films compress years of research and centuries of practice into a story. For the evidence behind the headlines, read what is ayahuasca for its pharmacology, history and risks, and ayahuasca benefits: what the research shows for trials and surveys with their designs and limits. Santo Daime and UDV ayahuasca churches covers religious use, and how DMT went mainstream traces the wider media story.

Ayahuasca blocks the enzyme MAO, which creates serious interaction risks with some medicines, including common antidepressants; the articles above set out the research. Films rarely cover this in depth. Evidence: established, as sourced in those articles.

What this guide can’t tell you

• Whether any film is accurate in detail: we checked credits and framing, not every scene.
• How films influence decisions about ayahuasca specifically; we found no study of that.
• Where any film is currently available to watch, which changes often.
• The many smaller ayahuasca documentaries, more than 50 by one thesis count, that lack festival or review records.

For the science behind ayahuasca’s main active compound, start with our pillar guide, what is DMT.

Shroomverse sells mushroom products. This article is general information about documentaries and films that feature ayahuasca. It is not medical, legal or purchasing advice, and it does not recommend any product.