There is a treasure dug deep down in the soil of The Amazon Forest, a treasure so little known to the western moviegoers, that it only got its well–deserved glory this year. Forty–two years after its initial release, including 4 years of the restoration process, El Viento del Ayahuasca, or The Wind of Ayahuasca, was finally unleashed by Kino Lorber. The film is a feature debut and a work by pioneering filmmaker, Nora de Izcue, somehow an anomaly in her filmography, consisting mostly of ethnographic documentaries.
The Wind of Ayahuasca is a love story, but a different one. Its characters – Miquel – a student of the spiritual traditions from Lima, and Iquitos native, sex worker – Nexy, meet at the deepest depth of trauma and spiritual awakening. Their experiences – scientific and personal, interchange through the film. It is perhaps the very first representation of.
Ayahuasca ritual on celluloid, and very rare to this day, an example of a picture on the holy medicine that is both informative and poetic. The film’s goal is not only to preserve the knowledge of Ayahuasca’s ritual use but to haunt a viewer with a perspective of being in the center of it.
To achieve it, de Izcue reaches for symbolic visions and sounds out of this world. Thanks to the collaboration with Peruvian avant–garde composer, David Luis Aguilar, the film becomes a sonic journey to the heart of psychedelic experience. Truly, one of its kind.
With The Wind of Ayahuasca uniqueness, comes its relative obscurity. Yes, the film had been restored because it won a grant from Peru’s Ministry of Culture. Yes, it got distribution from a big American arthouse cinema distributor, yet it’s still discussed only by the most passionate moviegoers. And it deserves much more attention.
To change that, I contacted Luis Alvarado – the director of Buh Records, the man responsible for the release of Aguilar’s work and who happened to play a part in the process of restoration.
Marcin Zimmermann
Piramida Instytut
M.Z.: First of all, tremendous respect for doing such a great job in revealing Peruvian avant–garde gems. I have to say that many of your releases, but especially Territorio del Eco, which also featured a composition by Luis David Aguilar, enriched my sonic perspective. Going back to Luis David Aguilar – when did you discover his compositions and how long did it take to bring his music to the new listeners?
Luis Alvarado: I started researching this period of Peruvian music around 2005. I had included a piece by Aguilar in a compilation called Tensions at the Vanguarda, which I prepared for the New York label Pogus. It was a piece called Mayuay, for the string quartet. That was in 2012, and I began to investigate Aguilar’s work more deeply. He gave me two CDs with various recordings, and there I discovered a new world of music. It coincided with the Sonidos Esenciales reissue project that I started with Buh Records. Both Hombres de Viento/Venas de la Tierra, which was released in 2015, and released in 2021 and 2022, respectively– Territorio del Eco and Ayahuasca have been well received. I also included Hombres de viento, in the compilation Tránsitos Sónicos. So we can say that I have been working with David Aguilar’s music for twelve years.
M.Z.: Following Territorio del Eco, you released Ayahuasca: Musica para cine de Luis David Aguillar. The album starts with a composition from Nora de Izcue’s film – El Viento de Ayahuasca. Coincidently or not, the same year El Viento de Ayahuasca restoration was finished, but officially only got to be released on Blu Ray, this year. Has anyone from Kino Lobrer tried to reach you?
L.A.: Yes, of course, David is a good friend of Nora de Izcue, we were aware of the restoration, and the album was released coinciding with the re–release of the restored film, that is to say, the album was published thinking of coinciding with the re–release of the film. Nora de Izcue also participated in the presentation talk we did about the album.
M.Z.: Now, you got me curious, because I couldn’t find any official information that the release of Ayahuasca: Musica para cine de Luis Aguillar was connected to the re–release of El Viento de Ayahuasca, but I’m well aware that back in 2022, the film had it’s brief theatrical re-release in Peru, but only in limited distribution . Another question comes to my mind – how did you come into possession of the soundtrack from El Viento de Ayahuasca?
L.A.: Luis David has a very good archive of all the recordings he made in the 70s and 80s, he had his own recording studio, so he is familiar with the world of magnetic tapes. David applied for a grant from the Ministry of Culture, which is awarded annually, called Economic Incentives for the Arts, and there is a category for phonographic production, which also includes publication and restoration. Luis David obtained the grant and was able to digitize many of his recordings and have the money to master them. However, that particular recording of El Viento del Ayahuasca had to be requested from the Cuban archives, where it had been recorded because David didn’t have those, he only had the scores—having the recording again motivated the whole project of making a vinyl record, at the same time that the film was being restored. David and Nora were in charge of recovering those recordings from Cuba.
M.Z.: Did you participate in the process of restoration?
L.A.: I wasn’t present in the studio, but I was part of the whole project, I helped with the application to the Ministry of Culture, and I have a lot of experience in that. And of course, I supervised editing of the album.
M.Z.: My last question would be, what do you think about the film and particularly its use of sound?
L.A.: It’s a good film, I think Aguilar’s music works well with the topic of connection with a hallucinatory world and gives many scenes an atmosphere of being in a parallel reality.
There will be more voices echoing from a parallel reality of El Viento del Ayahuasca. More in Anxious Musick Magazine soon.
Sources:
kinolorber.com
buhrecords.bandcamp.com
manoalzada.pe
culturacusco.gob.pe