Ex-Shaman

Luiz Bolognesi, Brazil/Portuguese/Tupí Monde, 2018. 82 min.

New York premiere of a unique film presented with The Assemblage along with an immersive shaman-led experience.

The tribe of Amazônia Paiter Surui had no contact with white people until 1969. Since then modernity has encroached, with smartphones, electricity, gas, inoculations, guns, and Facebook replacing traditional forms of life. In the midst of this new world, an ex-shaman who was forced into evangelical Christianity struggles to heal the suffering people of his village, and faces the wrath of spirits of the forest, who are angered that he has abandoned them.

Presented with The Assemblage

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About the Director

Luiz Bolognesi was born in São Paulo, Brazil, in 1966. Ex-Shaman is Luiz’s second feature as a director. The first was the animated film Rio 2096: A Story of Love and Fury, which was the winner of the Cristal Award for Best Picture at the Annecy Animated Film Festival in 2013. He is also an award-winning screenwriter, responsible for the script of Bicho de Sete Cabeças (Brainstorm), 2001; Chega de Saudade (The Ballroom), 2007, awarded Best Screenplay by the Brazilian Film Academy, the Recife Film Festival, and APCA(São Paulo Art Critics Association); Birdwatchers (La Terra degli Uomini Rossi), 2008, in competition at Venice; As Melhores Coisas do Mundo (The Best Things in the World), 2010, Rome International Film Festival and awarded Best Screenplay at Recife Film Festival; and Amazonia 3D, the closing film at Venice in 2014. In 2015 he wrote the screenplays for Elis, released in 2016. His most recent projects were the screenplays for Como Nossos Pais (Just Like Our Parents), which premiered at Berlin Panorama in 2017, and Bingo, o Rei das Manhãs (Bingo, the King of The Mornings), the official selection of Brazil for the 90th Academy Awards.

About the Presenter

Larisa Koronowski (ChokBar) had a mystical experience of light entering her body during meditation, after which she was able to assist people in healing. Despite coming from a long line of shamanic healers, she long resisted the calling, taking up jobs as a German language teacher and then as an interpreter at the Government of the Republic of Tuva at the Ministry of National Policy. Over the last 15 years she went through a deep transformation of consciousness with the assistance of the Spirits of her Ancestors and was transformed into a native Tuvan hereditary shamaness named ChokBar. She does one-on-one sessions, workshops, seminars, lectures, and shamanic circles in the United States and abroad.