Doctor on a Trip

Is there any human community that doesn’t have a word for depression, sadness or anxiety? How does Western culture deal with mental illness, its acceptance, and its treatment?

Filmmaker David Čálek charts psychedelic use as an alternative way to treat mental illness. Interviews with people with depression are interspersed with footage from an international expedition of psychiatrists who study the traditional ritual use of ayahuasca among the Amazonian Huni Kui.

Reports from the encounter between two different cultures are a scientific record but also tell of the roots of modern civilisational disorders, leading to a search for lost rituals, solidarity and shared spiritual experience in today’s European society.