Borrachero Dreams and the Quantum Plant
(2025, 13 mins)
Transported by the Brugmansia plant, an Indigenous man drifts between vision and reality, carrying the Kamëntšá people’s wisdom where time collapses and the future is felt, not seen.The film follows the unintended journey of an indigenous man who is suddenly transported from Putumayo, Colombia to the Swiss Alps and nearby urban landscapes after having come in contact with a Brugmansia plant. Caught up somewhere between visions and a quantum jump into a far away place and time, the story of the Borrachero Andaki begins to unravel as the traveler awakens the boundary-breaking powers of a plant that allows connection with vegetal beings and conflates memory, past and present. The film touches on the ethnomedicinal practices of the Kamnësnta people living in the Colombian-Amazon region, who still maintain a close relation to a potent plant from the Burgmansia family. Locally known as Borrachero Andaki, the toxicity of this plant has rendered it as a deadly and divine being at once. Ingesting -or even smelling it- can cause severe hallucinations and temporary loss of memory. Nevertheless, this plant is revered among the shamans for enabling those who take it to anticipate the future, not through visions but through feeling.