Movies Similar to Iwianch, the Devil Deer

The Return(2021)

It’s spring in the Ecuadorian Amazon and the Uyantza festival is underway with the community celebrating all that the forest has to offer. Meanwhile, news is breaking around the world that a novel virus is spreading and a state of emergency is declared across the country. As people test positive for COVID-19 in the community, some families decide to leave and head deeper into the jungle. Disconnected from school, friends, the internet, and work, one family learns to reconnect with life in the forest. The children begin to unlearn the national curriculum, and instead are taught Indigenous knowledge that mainstream schools normally pass over. As COVID-19 wreaks havoc around the planet, the family reconnect to their ancestral ways, but as news arrives that Ecuador’s lockdown will end soon, will the family choose to return?

Toroboro: The Name of the Plants(2024)

A botanical expedition in Ecuador's Amazon becomes a medium for an indigenous Huaorani community to remember the genocidal colonization it suffered in the 1960s. Meanwhile, a group of ecologists from the capital tries to stop oil exploitation in the last remaining forests where the isolated Huaoranis still live, who to this day refuse to come into contact with civilization.

The World According to Amazon(2019)

This film dives into the world of Amazon, its story and view of the world. It offers a large social fresco backed up by an in-depth investigation where private lives meet the mega-machine.

The Shaman & Ayahuasca: Journeys to Sacred Realms(2010)

Filmed in the jungles of Peru, shaman Don Jose Campos introduces the practices and benefits of Ayahuasca, the psychoactive plant brew that has been used for healing and visionary journeys by Amazonian shamans for at least a thousand years.

The Last Shaman(2017)

James, giving himself 12 months before he has "a license to kill himself," sets off to the Amazon rainforest with hopes of finding a shaman who can save his life.

Amazon(1997)

Explore the mysterious Amazon through the amazing IMAX experience. Amazon celebrates the beauty, vitality and wonder of the rapidly disappearing rain forest.

Amazon: Longest River in the World(1918)

Documentary by Portuguese Silvino Santos, about the Amazon, its flora, fauna, its inhabitants and among other wonderful images from the beginning of the 20th century with alternating close-up shots of caimans, jaguars and tropical flora with footage of Indigenous rituals--including some of the earliest known moving images of the Indigenous Witoto people--and longer sequences showcasing the region’s extractive industries: rubber, the Brazil nut, timber, fishing, even the egret feathers that were a staple of women’s fashion at the time.

Secrets of the Bermuda Triangle(1978)

Part documentary/part dramatization, this film details several of the highest-profile unsolved cases of disappearances, mysterious changes in personality and other strange occurrences related to the Bermuda Triangle.

The Lost Children(2024)

After a plane crash, four indigenous children fight to survive in the Colombian Amazon using ancestral wisdom as an unprecedented rescue mission unfolds.

It Rains(2021)

Is that what mass graves are like, one body on top of the other and nothing else? Through the rain, Oliver sends signals to his mother to help her unearth the truth.

I Named You in Silence(2021)

The Rastreadoras de El Fuerte are a group of mothers of disappeared persons in northern Sinaloa who, in the absence of the authorities, twice a week go out with picks and shovels in search of the remains of their children; a testimony of the abandonment of the State, the aggressions of the drug traffickers, the indifference of society and the pain, but also of the strength and courage that keep these women together, and of their empowerment to mobilize society in community organization.

Big River Man(2009)

Follows Martin Strel as he attempts to cover 3,375 miles of the Amazon River in what is being billed as the world's longest swim.

Santiago's Path: Disappearance and Death of Santiago Maldonado(2018)

Santiago Maldonado disappeared in the midst of repression against a Mapuche community that claimed to Luciano Benetton for his land. His body was found 78 days later. The need for truth and justice continues

Mata(2020)

Faced with the advancement of eucalyptus plantations, a farmer and an indigenous community stand as resistance and reveal the impact of monoculture on the environment, in contrast to traditional ways of life. The enemy can also be green.

Léa & I(2019)

Best friends travel though Latin America meeting shamans, experimenting with plant medicines, and wondering about what makes a life well-lived when one of them might have half the time to live it.

Itapoa - Un proyecto que camina

Genesis(2004)

An African narrator tells the story of earth history, the birth of the universe and evolution of life. Beautiful imagery makes this movie documentary complete.

Our Children's River(2023)

Across the Amazon, Indigenous guards are unarmed patrols that peacefully defend ancestral territories against threats like oil, mining and poaching. They use diverse technologies to monitor their lands, and when necessary, force out illegal operations and actors. Most of this daily work, which involves lengthy hikes and patient observation, goes unseen. This film depicts the process of the Indigenous Guard: its patrols, its watchful vigilance over the landscape, and its support of the community. Their work as guards helps ensure that destruction in the Amazon doesn’t advance, and that their community has the vital space it needs to live life on their own terms.

#SOMOSAMAZÔNIA(2019)

Metamorphosis(2009)

Hamilton Souther is the founder of Blue Morpho Tours, a company that caters to ayahuasca tourists in the Peruvian Amazon. Souther talks about the events that led him to Amazonian shamanism. Five first-time ayahuasca drinkers on a nine-day retreat with Blue Morpho relate their experiences.