Documenting an Ayahuasca ceremony – Antarctica Plus – CN San Francisco – Ucayali

In the second week of May they wrote to us from the production company Antárctica Films to request fixer and logistics services for a production that was already being carried out in other Latin American countries, on the use of alternative medicine in all its fields of application, which include among others, ancestral medicine, scientific medicine and the integration of both today. We found the topic fascinating so we immediately got to work.

The filming was projected to use the medicinal center of a Shipibo Shaman as the location, in the of the Aguaytia river middle basin, an area that was not familiar to us, so agreed with the production, to made a scouting trip of our fixer with the Shaman, to gather the information that was missing to make the budget for all the logistical support for the filming.

Unfortunately, and due to having been without visitors throughout the pandemic, the place did not offer the conditions for filming and after seeing our report, the production decided to change location and film in the San Francisco native community, at 45 minutes by road from Pucallpa. Proximity was not necessarily synonymous of less complex logistics, since we had to come and go from the area every day during the 9 days that the filming lasted and even a couple of nights, returning to the city at dawn.

Despite everything, our fixer was able to move the 13-person team and all the shooting gear, every day, to the different locations according to each day of filming and satisfactorily meet the needs not only of the team but all the local actors too.

Real thanks to all our service providers in Pucallpa, to the Flores family for their hospitality at the Suipino center, to Don Victor Cauper and especially to Lucho; our driver, for having been the perfect local support for the filming to have been a success. See you all next time!!!