"Embrace the Serpent" filmed on location in breathtaking black-and-white cinematography in the heart of the Amazonian jungle. The film co-written and directed by Colombian Ciro Guerra was nominated for the past year's Best Foreign Film. I found the film absorbing, mesmerizing and was my favorite movie of the year. The plot revolves around Karamakate, a mystic Amazonian shaman and the last survivor of his people, serves as guide to an ailing German ethnographic explorer in 1909, and again thirty years later to an American who follows. Inspired by actual journals kept by the two explorers. 

Landmark Sunshine Cinema 143 East Houston St.  www.landmarktheatres.com