
Kentucky Ayahuasca
Steve Hupp is not the person you'd expect to find running ayahuasca ceremonies in rural Kentucky. He dropped out of high school, served time for bank robbery, and now leads a small community that treats him as a shaman, guiding participants through the plant medicine ceremonies more commonly associated with the Amazon than Appalachia. The film follows Hupp and the people who come to him, sitting in on the ceremonies themselves and the conversations before and after, as participants describe what they're seeking and what the sessions do to them. It doesn't shy away from Hupp's past, letting his criminal record sit alongside his current role as spiritual guide without resolving the contradiction for the viewer. The result is a portrait of an unlikely figure and the community he's built around him, set against the backdrop of a state better known for bourbon and coal than for hallucinogenic sacrament.