Cookies on FilmShelves
We use essential cookies to keep the site working. With your permission we also use analytics cookies (so we can fix what's broken) and advertising cookies (so the ads you see are more relevant). Read our privacy policy.
You'll still see ads on the free tier — rejecting just means they won't be personalised.

One of the best reviewed films of the year and a 2016 Academy Award-nominee, Ciro Guerra’s multi award-winning EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT is a breathtaking cinematic odyssey through the Amazon, following the quests of two European explorers (one in 1909 and the other in the 1940s) in search of a rare flower alleged to have healing properties. Inspired by the real-life journals kept by Theodor Koch-Grunberg (portrayed by Jan Bijvoet) and Richard Evans Schultes (Brionne Davis), the film charts each man’s treacherous and life-changing journey. Though decades apart, both are guided through the labyrinthine rivers and jungles by the same native shaman, Karamakate (Nilbio Torres, and later Antonio Bolivar Salvado Yangiama), the last surviving member of his tribe, who takes them deeper and deeper into a heart of darkness…
As an Amazon Associate and eBay Partner Network member, FilmShelves earns from qualifying purchases. These links may earn us a commission at no extra cost to you.

Embrace of the Serpent (2015)
125 min
The epic story of the first contact, encounter, approach, betrayal and, eventually, life-transcending friendship, between Karamakate, an Amazonian shaman, last survivor of his people, and two scientists that, over the course of 40 years, travel through the Amazon in search of a sacred plant that can heal them. Inspired by the journals of the first explorers of the Colombian Amazon, Theodor Koch-Grunberg and Richard Evans Schultes.