Sheila, a nurse and devout Christian from Switzerland returns to her former childhood home in the Amazonian jungle after many years. Accompanied by her equally religious husband Thomas she follows an invitation of her father Balthazar – a former engineer who lives a withdrawn life as a self-proclaimed protector and defender of nature on the remote family property in the jungle. Entangled in between her loyalty towards Thomas and the nostalgic affection towards her father, Sheila falls back into old patterns and the encounter turns into a disturbing journey. Reality and fantasy, present and past overlap and the only solution seems to be a transformation. When Thomas disappears in the jungle, Sheila withdraws into her inner emotional safety zone and becomes the 8-year-old girl she once was. Life goes on calmly, following the rhythm of nature in Balthazar’s way. Child-Sheila finds herself confronted with old family patterns until one morning Balthazar has an accident on the property. Attempting to help her father she gets dragged into another reality of the jungle – the life of
a farmer family and local teenagers who built a skateboard halfpipe in the middle of the thicket. Child-Sheila feels the possibility to make a step into a self-determined life while being observed by her father’s dog Jenny who already sees her real self.
Matthias Huser
