Embrace of the Serpent (2015) Embrace of the Serpent (Spanish: El abrazo de la serpiente) is a 2015 internationally coproduced adventure drama film directed by Ciro Guerra and written by Guerra and Jacques Toulemonde Vidal. Shot in black and white, this film explores the Amazon rainforest through the eyes of two explorers who encounter different indigenous tribes. This film was inspired by the real-life journals of two explorers, ethnologist Theodor Koch-Grünberg and biologist Richard Evans Schultes, who traveled through the Colombian Amazon during the last century in search of the sacred and difficult-to-find psychedelic Yakruna plant. The film ends with a transformed Evan remaining enamoured by a group of butterflies.