“Awavena” expands the boundaries of what immersive video can do.
You are sitting in a canoe on the Gregório River as a voice gently narrates the story of Hushahu, the first Yawanawá woman to become a shaman. The narrator translates for Hushahu as she speaks about her tribe of roughly 3,000 indigenous peoples spread across Brazil, Peru, and Bolivia and the sacred tradition of taking the medicinal Uni tea (better known as Ayahuasca) in order to convene intimately and spiritually with the forest in which they live.
A long bridge divides the outside world from the tribe. You stand in the middle of it, waiting to be invited in. You are transported to Tatá’s side—the Yawanawá elder shaman who is over 100 years old—as he lies in a hammock, surrounded by family. Hushahu takes the Uni tea. She tells you how the forest comes alive to her and exchanges energy with her. She tells you the challenges of staying under the influence of Uni tea for several months, under Tata’s guidance, as part of her shaman training.
You are then transported into the forest as it dissolves into a gorgeous, gently undulating field of thousands of light points—it’s like standing in the middle of a Pointillist painting. You are lifted slowly into a massive tree, where the infinite view fills you with awe, making the small hairs on your arm stand on end. The path of your vision lights up the environment with the luminescence that Hushahu is describing. As Hushahu narrates the challenges of Ayahuasca, you are lowered into a stream, the water serenely rippling over you. You are there.
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This is Awavena, a 17-minute “mixed-reality” work that melds augmented reality, 360-degree film footage, and virtual reality. It was funded by the Sundance Institute, produced by Nicole Newnham and directed by Lynette Wallworth, a duo whose previous VR film Collisions won an Emmy. Awavena screened in January at Sundance, but has been under production even through this week as the team tweaks it based on emerging VR technologies. (It’s currently being premiered to the world at the Venice Film Festival.) It’s Hushahu’s story, but more than that, it’s a remarkable attempt to give the viewer the experience of physically being in the Amazon, drinking the Uni tea, and feeling the energy of their rainforest.
The project began in 2016, when the Yawanawá chief, Tashka, viewed Collisionsand realized the technology could be used to help outsiders understand the Yawanawá’s sacred traditions. Tashka immediately asked Wallworth to come to Acre, Brazil, to film their community, as their shaman Tatá was in failing health. They began filming in 2017. “We had an instant compatibility,” Wallworth told me when I met her at the Technicolor Experience Center in Los Angeles. “Tashka told me he and I are two dreamers, and that we see things that not everybody sees.”
As documented in the film, Tatá was one of the spiritual centers of the Yawanawá tribe, having survived years of slavery during which missionaries and rubber tappers threatened their culture. Tatá preserved the Yawanawá spiritual tradition even as the tribe faced extinction in the 1980s. He trained Hushahu to be the tribe’s first female shaman, and in doing so, emboldened other indigenous tribes in the Amazon to finally initiate women as shamans.
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Source: Vice