The Inside of Us

Outwardly, it may seem that Jan, a young filmmaker, is living a content life, but he's going through a crushing inner spiritual crisis. He starts to wake up from his strictly materialistically based world to a reality, which uncovers its real face. The understanding of political manipulations, the decline of the moral values of our society, and its vapid direction lead Jan to revise his view on the world. Suffering from sleep paralysis - a state, when the body is paralyzed but the mind is experiencing an unexplained phenomenon, he decides to leave the civilization with a bunch of friends to visit a family in South America who practices an ancient mental and physical cleansing ritual - temazcal. The ritual is reinforced by the psychoactive cactus of San Pedro. There in the Ecuadorian Andes Jan meets Agustina Gref, a Kichwan shaman who offeres him a initiation to the mysteries of knowledge in the heart of the Amazon jungle. Agustin teaches Jan to see the world from a different perspective. Through the community life he gains inspiration while watching children education and the access to life based on humility and trust. Agustin introduces Jan into healing plants and claims that the plants are their teachers and bearers of all wisdom. Two people from two different continents become friends. With all the healing treatments that Jan is experiencing, surface and hidden blocks, fears and forgotten painful experience emerge. With the help of "liana of death" (ayahuasca), Jan experiences an immediate confrontation with himself. He goes through a powerful transcendental experience that will destroy everything he has believed in. Jan feels an urge to share his experience with the world. He believes that he has found sense and hope, and that shamanic rituals might be the answers to the existential questions and chaos of our world. The life in Agustin's community, however, also uncovered its backward face. Jan witnesses the presidential meetings of community where tribal leaders must defend their lands and lives against corporations that are constantly expanding by extracting gold and oil. After return to the civilization, Jan tries to pass on his message from the jungle, but no one listens or understands it. He searches for answers from scientists who can help him to clarify what happened in the forest and tell him how to handle the acquired knowledge. Could the plants really be our teachers who talk to us in the altered states of consciousness? Has he gone mad com