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Sebastian and Pastora live in a Shuar village in the Upper Amazonia of Ecuador. Sebastian is not only a respected healer, but also a medicinal botanist who experiments with unknown plants he encounters in the forest. His unique practice seeks to cultivate new knowledge, reconnecting him with his ancestors. Pastora is one of the rare female leaders in Amazonia, who struggles to negotiate with local authorities for her community. With powerful plants such as ayahuasca, they revive and energise their perceptions of the future. These plants allow them to acquire power and a faith to cope with the obstacles they now face, given that their lives have been irreversibly affected by the modern state system. The alert eyes of the filmmaker, embodied in the drifting camera, creates a distinctive field of personal story-telling, inviting the viewers into the unique sensory experience of the life in Amazonia, where truths, meanings and images flow and take unpredictable shapes.
Awards:
Excellence in Cultural Documentary, Agency for Cultural Affairs of Japan (2022)
Best Student Film, International Festival of Ethnological Film (2021)
related works
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Six short films exploring work and the relationship of Sambla people of Burkina Faso with their environment. Shot and edited in the field, they are conceived as audiovisual essays on the interplay of human-produced sounds and modifications of the environment.
Sound, Video
PhD
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The Depth Beneath, The Height Above
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Video
MA
2017
Air Pressure
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Staff
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Heritage, Herd, Horizon
A photo essay that explores the lives of crofters on the Isle of Harris, located in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. It examines the intricate relationships between crofters and their sheep, highlighting how these bonds have been shaped by the crofters’ experiences in sheep farming.
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MA
2025
Living for living
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Photography
MA
2014
Above 592 Meters
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Video
MA
2017
Apis
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Sound, Video
MA
2023
Natural Born Hunters
An ethnographic film that follows a group of city lawyers on a recreational hunting trip to a small village in the West of Russia. It explores issues of class, (toxic) masculinity and man’s complex relationship with nature. It outlines a rare instance of male sociality that — while potentially problematic from an ethical standpoint — allows for a temporary transcendence of socio-economic and political divisions present in contemporary Russia.
Video
MA
2019
After The Rains Came
Seven short stories about objects and lifeworlds among the cow herding Samburu people of Northern Kenya. My original intention had been no explore the biographical nature of Samburu bodily adornment, but there was a twist: this region had been suffering a long drought and it did not feel appropriate to make a film about beads while people were just trying to survive.
Video
MA
2006
The Rhythm of Uist
This film is a lyrical meditation that takes the audience to the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, immersing them in the sphere of life for three young adults who have grown up on the Isles of Uist. Through focusing on the stories and everyday mundane activities experienced by each protagonist it aims to provide a new way of understanding and experiencing island life.
Video
MA
2021
Where the Beach is Made of Bones
This project uses photography, sound, and mixed media to transport the viewer to the Salton Sea and its surrounding communities of Bombay Beach and Slab City. The communities exist within a conceptual blank space in inland California. In this corner of the Mojave Desert, Individuals have gravitated to this space over time, booming and busting in regular intervals. It has been known for brief moments to the outside world, as a tourist destination, has occasionally been featured in films like ‘Into the Wild’, or brought to prominence when people flood into Coachella for the music festival.
Photography, Sound
MA
2016