Documentaries
Sacred plants in documentary film
An annotated selection, grouped by plant or medicine.
A selection of documentaries on sacred plants and other entheogens of interest
We give priority to films made with or by Indigenous peoples, to rigorous science communication and to films that address risks, ethics and commodification. We avoid films that work as advertising for retreats or promise cures.
Including a documentary does not mean we agree with all of its content: where we have reservations, we say so. We do not host any of these films; the rights belong to their authors and producers, and we only link to official platforms. Availability changes by country and over time: if a link stops working, write to us and we will fix it.
All (23) Ayahuasca and yagé (7) Jurema (2) Peyote and San Pedro (4) Mushrooms (psilocybin) (5) Kambo (2) Entheogens in general (3)
1
Ayahuasca and yagé · Peoples and traditions
Yagé is Our Life
Neil White · United Kingdom and Colombia · 2016 · 23 min · Spanish, with passages in Inga and Kamëntsá
Taitas and Indigenous leaders from Putumayo (Colombia) explain the place of yagé in their communities and the threats they perceive, above all its commercialisation .
See details and where to watch →
2
Ayahuasca and yagé · Peoples and traditions
Plants of Power: Yagé
Canal Trece (Colombia) · 2020 · 25 min · Spanish
Taita Pablo Crispín Chindoy, of the Inga-Kamëntsá reserve, shows how yagé is prepared, and the episode explains its compounds and how they act on the brain.
See details and where to watch →
3
Ayahuasca and yagé · Peoples and traditions
Povo Yawanawá
Vincent Moon and Priscilla Telmon · Brazil and France · 2017 · 42 min · Yawanawá and Portuguese
A musical and observational record of the Yawanawá people's annual Yawa festival in Acre (Brazil), with the chants and rituals in which ayahuasca (uni ) plays a part.
See details and where to watch →
4
Ayahuasca and yagé · Science
Voices of Ayahuasca: The Science of Ayahuasca
Plantaforma para la Defensa de la Ayahuasca · Spain · 2024 · 46 min · Spanish
An episode of a documentary series on scientific research with ayahuasca, from the pioneering work in Catalonia in the late 1990s to the present day, with interviews with researchers.
Plantaforma · FERM member
See details and where to watch →
5
Ayahuasca and yagé · Ethics and risks
Ayahuasca boom in Brazil – Remedy or risk?
DW Documental · Germany · 2024 · 26 min · Spanish (also in English)
A report on the spread of ayahuasca in Brazil: ritual use in a Huni Kuin village, the ayahuasca religions and research on depression and addiction, together with its risks.
See details and where to watch →
6
Ayahuasca and yagé · Ethics and risks
The Dangerous World of Ayahuasca
ABC Australia (Foreign Correspondent) · 2017 · 29 min · English, with automatic subtitles
Australia's public broadcaster investigates ayahuasca tourism in the Peruvian Amazon and the cases of deaths and abuse linked to centres and fake shamans.
See details and where to watch →
7
Ayahuasca and yagé · Ethics and risks
The Last Shaman
Raz Degan · international co-production · 2016 · 83 min · English and Spanish
A young American with severe depression travels to the Peruvian Amazon in search of ayahuasca treatment and encounters both genuine healers and impostors.
With reservations
See details and where to watch →
8
Jurema · Peoples and traditions
Jurema Sagrada
Vincent Moon and Priscilla Telmon · Brazil and France · 2017 · 20 min · Portuguese
The annual Kipupa Malunguinho gathering in Pernambuco, where juremeiros from north-east Brazil hold rituals with jurema, a tradition with Tabajara, Potiguar and Cariri roots.
See details and where to watch →
9
Jurema · Peoples and traditions
Jurema: Raízes Etéreas
Marcos Albuquerque · Brazil · 2003 · 40 min · Portuguese
An ethnographic documentary on the history and present-day uses of jurema: Indigenous peoples of north-east Brazil, catimbó, umbanda, rural maracatu and its international spread.
See details and where to watch →
10
Peyote and San Pedro · Peoples and traditions
Huicholes: The Last Peyote Guardians
Hernán Vilchez · Mexico and Argentina · 2014 · 125 min · Spanish, Wixárika and English
The Wixárika people defend Wirikuta, their sacred territory and the land of peyote, against the mining concessions granted by the Mexican government.
See details and where to watch →
11
Peyote and San Pedro · Ethics and risks
The Peyote Files
Bia Labate and Nicholas Spiers · United States · 2021 · 3 episodes (29 min) · English, with automatic subtitles
Anthropologist Bia Labate travels through West Texas with botanist Martin Terry to discuss peyote's habitat, the threats it faces and its conservation.
See details and where to watch →
12
Peyote and San Pedro · Science
Hamilton's Pharmacopeia: Peyote, the Divine Messenger
Hamilton Morris (VICE) · United States · 2017 · 43 min · English, with automatic subtitles
Chemist and science communicator Hamilton Morris follows the biology and chemistry of mescaline, from cactus collections to South Texas, where wild peyote is in decline.
See details and where to watch →
13
Peyote and San Pedro · Peoples and traditions
Hamilton's Pharmacopeia: The Cactus Apprentice
Hamilton Morris (VICE) · United States · 2018 · 44 min · English and Spanish
In Huancabamba (Piura, Peru), Hamilton Morris learns from a local healer how the San Pedro cactus (huachuma) is used in traditional Andean medicine and analyses its chemistry.
See details and where to watch →
14
Mushrooms (psilocybin) · Peoples and traditions
María Sabina, mujer espíritu
Nicolás Echevarría · Mexico · 1979 · 81 min · Mazatec and Spanish
A portrait of the Mazatec healer María Sabina, her life in the Sierra of Oaxaca and her mushroom vigils (veladas), following the international commotion that came after R. Gordon Wasson's visit.
⚠️ Not currently available in Spain
See details and where to watch →
15
Mushrooms (psilocybin) · Science
Magic Medicine
Monty Wates · United Kingdom · 2018 · 79 min · English, with Spanish subtitles
It follows, over several years, the first clinical trial of psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression at Imperial College London, through three volunteers and the research team.
See details and where to watch →
16
Mushrooms (psilocybin) · Science
A New Understanding: The Science of Psilocybin
Roslyn Dauber · United States · 2015 · 54 min · English, with automatic subtitles
The first studies with psilocybin since the 1970s to relieve the existential distress of patients with terminal cancer, with testimony from patients and researchers.
See details and where to watch →
17
Mushrooms (psilocybin) · Science
‘Magic Mushrooms’: The Science Behind Psilocybin Therapy
Filo Docs · Argentina · 2025 · 31 min · Spanish
Toxicologists and doctors, including Carlos Damin of the Hospital Fernández in Buenos Aires, explain the effects of psilocybin, its therapeutic uses under study and its negative consequences.
See details and where to watch →
18
Mushrooms (psilocybin) · Ethics and risks
Why is magic mushroom therapy booming in Jamaica?
Al Jazeera English (Mindset) · 2024 · 21 min · English, with automatic subtitles
Jamaica, where psilocybin mushrooms are unregulated, has filled up with luxury retreats for foreigners. The report speaks with doctors, patients and workers about promises and risks.
See details and where to watch →
Kambo is not strictly an entheogen: it is the secretion of a frog (Phyllomedusa bicolor ) used as medicine by several Amazonian peoples. It has documented risks, especially outside its traditional context.
19
Kambo · Peoples and traditions
Vacina do Sapo
José Paulo Genari Tezza (Canal Futura) · Brazil · 2013 · 13 min · Portuguese and Yawanawá
In a Yawanawá village in Acre: the search for the frog, the extraction and preparation of its secretion and its application, with testimony from the chief and from healers on what it means for the community.
See details and where to watch →
20
Kambo · Peoples and traditions
Kambo and the Training of Matsés Hunters
Xapiri Ground · Peru · 2026 · 75 min · Spanish · recorded lecture
Matsés anthropologist Roldán Tumi explains kambo as a central practice in the physical and sensory training of his people's hunters.
See details and where to watch →
21
Entheogens in general · Science
How to Change Your Mind
Alison Ellwood and Lucy Walker · United States · 2022 · 4 episodes · English, with Spanish subtitles
A series based on Michael Pollan's book that reviews the history and uses of LSD, psilocybin, MDMA and mescaline.
See details and where to watch →
22
Entheogens in general · Science
Can Psychedelics Cure?
NOVA (PBS) · United States · 2022 · 54 min · English, with subtitles
Science programming from US public television on current research with psychedelics for post-traumatic stress, alcoholism and depression.
See details and where to watch →
23
Entheogens in general · Ethics and risks
The Rise of Psychedelic Capitalism
Alexander Beiner (Rebel Wisdom) · United Kingdom · 2021 · 35 min · English, with automatic subtitles
The investment rush around psychedelics: what happens when they move from the counterculture to the boardroom, with clinicians, executives, philosophers and a Shipibo healer.
See details and where to watch →
×
Ayahuasca and yagé · Peoples and traditions
Yagé is Our Life
Neil White · United Kingdom and Colombia · 2016 · 23 min · Spanish, with passages in Inga and Kamëntsá
Taitas and Indigenous leaders from Putumayo (Colombia) explain the place of yagé in their communities and the threats they perceive, above all its commercialisation .
Why we recommend it
It gives the floor to the traditional healers themselves and tackles the commodification of yagé head-on. Winner of Best International Short Film at the Respect Human Rights Film Festival (Belfast, 2017).
Where to watch
×
Ayahuasca and yagé · Peoples and traditions
Plants of Power: Yagé
Canal Trece (Colombia) · 2020 · 25 min · Spanish
Taita Pablo Crispín Chindoy, of the Inga-Kamëntsá reserve, shows how yagé is prepared, and the episode explains its compounds and how they act on the brain.
Why we recommend it
It combines the voice of a traditional authority with a basic pharmacological explanation, in Spanish and in a short format.
Where to watch
×
Ayahuasca and yagé · Peoples and traditions
Povo Yawanawá
Vincent Moon and Priscilla Telmon · Brazil and France · 2017 · 42 min · Yawanawá and Portuguese
A musical and observational record of the Yawanawá people's annual Yawa festival in Acre (Brazil), with the chants and rituals in which ayahuasca (uni ) plays a part.
Why we recommend it
It is contemplative, with no narrator and no therapeutic promises, and is published under a Creative Commons licence. It also makes it possible to discuss the tourist dimension the festival has taken on.
Where to watch
×
Ayahuasca and yagé · Science
Voices of Ayahuasca: The Science of Ayahuasca
Plantaforma para la Defensa de la Ayahuasca · Spain · 2024 · 46 min · Spanish
Plantaforma · FERM member
An episode of a documentary series on scientific research with ayahuasca, from the pioneering work in Catalonia in the late 1990s to the present day, with interviews with researchers.
Why we recommend it
It tells the story of ayahuasca research carried out here, in the words of the people who did it. It is produced by the Plantaforma, a friendly organisation that, like AYNI, is part of FERM.
Where to watch
×
Ayahuasca and yagé · Ethics and risks
Ayahuasca boom in Brazil – Remedy or risk?
DW Documental · Germany · 2024 · 26 min · Spanish (also in English)
A report on the spread of ayahuasca in Brazil: ritual use in a Huni Kuin village, the ayahuasca religions and research on depression and addiction, together with its risks.
Why we recommend it
Public-broadcaster journalism that sets out benefits and risks without sensationalism, with a Spanish-language version.
Where to watch
×
Ayahuasca and yagé · Ethics and risks
The Dangerous World of Ayahuasca
ABC Australia (Foreign Correspondent) · 2017 · 29 min · English, with automatic subtitles
Australia's public broadcaster investigates ayahuasca tourism in the Peruvian Amazon and the cases of deaths and abuse linked to centres and fake shamans.
Why we recommend it
It offers the perspective on risks and harms that is often missing from other documentaries. Useful for discussing risk reduction and responsibility.
Where to watch
×
Ayahuasca and yagé · Ethics and risks
The Last Shaman
Raz Degan · international co-production · 2016 · 83 min · English and Spanish
With reservations
A young American with severe depression travels to the Peruvian Amazon in search of ayahuasca treatment and encounters both genuine healers and impostors.
Why we recommend it
We include it with reservations. It starkly portrays the market in shamans for foreigners, but its narrative revolves around a personal healing. We recommend watching it critically, alongside the ABC Australia report.
Where to watch
×
Jurema · Peoples and traditions
Jurema Sagrada
Vincent Moon and Priscilla Telmon · Brazil and France · 2017 · 20 min · Portuguese
The annual Kipupa Malunguinho gathering in Pernambuco, where juremeiros from north-east Brazil hold rituals with jurema, a tradition with Tabajara, Potiguar and Cariri roots.
Why we recommend it
One of the few carefully made, freely accessible audiovisual records of jurema, presented as a space of cultural resistance.
Where to watch
×
Jurema · Peoples and traditions
Jurema: Raízes Etéreas
Marcos Albuquerque · Brazil · 2003 · 40 min · Portuguese
An ethnographic documentary on the history and present-day uses of jurema: Indigenous peoples of north-east Brazil, catimbó, umbanda, rural maracatu and its international spread.
Why we recommend it
A rigorous anthropological perspective, awarded at the Mostra Internacional do Filme Etnográfico and given a mention at the Pierre Verger Prize.
Where to watch
×
Peyote and San Pedro · Peoples and traditions
Huicholes: The Last Peyote Guardians
Hernán Vilchez · Mexico and Argentina · 2014 · 125 min · Spanish, Wixárika and English
The Wixárika people defend Wirikuta, their sacred territory and the land of peyote, against the mining concessions granted by the Mexican government.
Why we recommend it
It was made at the request of Wixaritari families and elders and brings together spirituality, territory and extractivism. Winner of the Survival International Award at the Barcelona Human Rights Film Festival.
Where to watch
×
Peyote and San Pedro · Ethics and risks
The Peyote Files
Bia Labate and Nicholas Spiers · United States · 2021 · 3 episodes (29 min) · English, with automatic subtitles
Anthropologist Bia Labate travels through West Texas with botanist Martin Terry to discuss peyote's habitat, the threats it faces and its conservation.
Why we recommend it
It addresses a little-known problem: wild peyote is threatened by overharvesting and habitat loss. It is produced by the Chacruna Institute and the Cactus Conservation Institute.
Where to watch
×
Peyote and San Pedro · Science
Hamilton's Pharmacopeia: Peyote, the Divine Messenger
Hamilton Morris (VICE) · United States · 2017 · 43 min · English, with automatic subtitles
Chemist and science communicator Hamilton Morris follows the biology and chemistry of mescaline, from cactus collections to South Texas, where wild peyote is in decline.
Why we recommend it
Rigorous popular chemistry that also addresses the scarcity and conservation of the cactus.
Where to watch
×
Peyote and San Pedro · Peoples and traditions
Hamilton's Pharmacopeia: The Cactus Apprentice
Hamilton Morris (VICE) · United States · 2018 · 44 min · English and Spanish
In Huancabamba (Piura, Peru), Hamilton Morris learns from a local healer how the San Pedro cactus (huachuma) is used in traditional Andean medicine and analyses its chemistry.
Why we recommend it
Of the material we have reviewed on San Pedro, it is the only piece that avoids the tone of a retreat or a mystical master and places the cactus within the real curanderismo of northern Peru.
Where to watch
×
Mushrooms (psilocybin) · Peoples and traditions
María Sabina, mujer espíritu
Nicolás Echevarría · Mexico · 1979 · 81 min · Mazatec and Spanish
⚠️ Not currently available in Spain
A portrait of the Mazatec healer María Sabina, her life in the Sierra of Oaxaca and her mushroom vigils (veladas), following the international commotion that came after R. Gordon Wasson's visit.
Why we recommend it
An essential historical document on the Mazatec tradition and on the harm that foreign interest did to its practice.
Where to watch
×
Mushrooms (psilocybin) · Science
Magic Medicine
Monty Wates · United Kingdom · 2018 · 79 min · English, with Spanish subtitles
It follows, over several years, the first clinical trial of psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression at Imperial College London, through three volunteers and the research team.
Why we recommend it
It shows real clinical research up close, with its limits and uncertainties, far from the rhetoric of the miracle cure.
Where to watch
×
Mushrooms (psilocybin) · Science
A New Understanding: The Science of Psilocybin
Roslyn Dauber · United States · 2015 · 54 min · English, with automatic subtitles
The first studies with psilocybin since the 1970s to relieve the existential distress of patients with terminal cancer, with testimony from patients and researchers.
Why we recommend it
A clinical and humane approach to the end of life. The official website itself links to the full version, free of charge.
Where to watch
×
Mushrooms (psilocybin) · Science
‘Magic Mushrooms’: The Science Behind Psilocybin Therapy
Filo Docs · Argentina · 2025 · 31 min · Spanish
Toxicologists and doctors, including Carlos Damin of the Hospital Fernández in Buenos Aires, explain the effects of psilocybin, its therapeutic uses under study and its negative consequences.
Why we recommend it
In Spanish, recent, and it includes the toxicological and risk perspective alongside the therapeutic one.
Where to watch
×
Mushrooms (psilocybin) · Ethics and risks
Why is magic mushroom therapy booming in Jamaica?
Al Jazeera English (Mindset) · 2024 · 21 min · English, with automatic subtitles
Jamaica, where psilocybin mushrooms are unregulated, has filled up with luxury retreats for foreigners. The report speaks with doctors, patients and workers about promises and risks.
Why we recommend it
It gives a concrete illustration of commodification and psychedelic tourism, taking a critical view of the lack of regulation.
Where to watch
×
Kambo · Peoples and traditions
Vacina do Sapo
José Paulo Genari Tezza (Canal Futura) · Brazil · 2013 · 13 min · Portuguese and Yawanawá
In a Yawanawá village in Acre: the search for the frog, the extraction and preparation of its secretion and its application, with testimony from the chief and from healers on what it means for the community.
Why we recommend it
It shows kambo in its Indigenous and community context, as told by those involved. It does not address its risks, which are documented, particularly outside that context.
Where to watch
×
Kambo · Peoples and traditions
Kambo and the Training of Matsés Hunters
Xapiri Ground · Peru · 2026 · 75 min · Spanish · recorded lecture
Matsés anthropologist Roldán Tumi explains kambo as a central practice in the physical and sensory training of his people's hunters.
Why we recommend it
Matsés knowledge explained first-hand by a Matsés anthropologist, in Spanish.
Where to watch
×
Entheogens in general · Science
How to Change Your Mind
Alison Ellwood and Lucy Walker · United States · 2022 · 4 episodes · English, with Spanish subtitles
A series based on Michael Pollan's book that reviews the history and uses of LSD, psilocybin, MDMA and mescaline.
Why we recommend it
A good general introduction to the so-called psychedelic renaissance, covering history, science and politics. It is best complemented by Indigenous and critical perspectives.
Where to watch
×
Entheogens in general · Science
Can Psychedelics Cure?
NOVA (PBS) · United States · 2022 · 54 min · English, with subtitles
Science programming from US public television on current research with psychedelics for post-traumatic stress, alcoholism and depression.
Why we recommend it
Rigorous and balanced: it separates what science knows from what it does not yet know.
Where to watch
×
Entheogens in general · Ethics and risks
The Rise of Psychedelic Capitalism
Alexander Beiner (Rebel Wisdom) · United Kingdom · 2021 · 35 min · English, with automatic subtitles
The investment rush around psychedelics: what happens when they move from the counterculture to the boardroom, with clinicians, executives, philosophers and a Shipibo healer.
Why we recommend it
One of the few audiovisual pieces that openly questions the commodification of the psychedelic renaissance. It is an essay with its own editorial line.
Where to watch
