En Bora - Beyond Amazon's Riverbanks

“- We came to learn the songs and stories to heal. Then the grandfather said: - Grandchildren, you will be able to learn and without a doubt, he said, I will teach you everything, from the beginning to the end.”
Part of an old Bora tale

“Soy Indio” (“I’m Indian”) and “Soy Bora” (“I’m Bora”). This is the way Aladino defines himself. Aladino is a shaman from Pebas, a remote village in the heart of the Peruvian Amazon. Shamans are healers, using the coca plant (ground to perfection), tobacco, sugar cane rum, “ampiri” (a mixture of tobacco with wild tree salt) to heal local people. The expertise and millennial tales are passed down through generation after generation of Bora Tribesman.

With the world completely globalized, Aladino is now an exile in his own land. While his culture is fading, the most important healing element for the Boras, the coca plant, is where he finds the strength to keep on living like a true shaman.

The 4-year project is a multimedia story about a man standing against the decimation of a millennial culture. The approach as if we were in his mind, feeling the psychological changes on this metaphoric journey about Amazon’s spirituality and a battle of a shaman not to be like everyone else.