INTO AN OPEN SPACE
Into an Open Space is an intimate feature documentary that follows the raw and personal journeys of everyday humans navigating pain and healing. We walk alongside them before, during, and after plant medicine ceremony, offering an unfiltered glimpse into what happens when we open ourselves up to the possibility of something more.
SYNOPSIS
We are living through unbearably painful times. Much of what we carry remains beneath the surface - unseen, unnamed, and often misunderstood. Anxiety, depression, and emotional numbness have become common features of modern life.
Into an Open Space is an inquiry into what becomes possible when we say yes to healing. This documentary follows the journeys of real people as they explore what healing looks like. Over several months, we walk alongside them before, during, and after their participation in a plant medicine ceremony. We witness their fears, hopes, and the quiet, often nonlinear path of healing.
Their experiences are anchored by the question: What does healing look like for you?
We navigate the terrain of grief, anxiety, and disconnection - not to fix, but to understand. The film meets each emotion with honor and respect, allowing it to arise and evolve naturally.
Ceremony, in this context, refers to a sacred, intentional gathering where participants work with the sacrament of plant medicine in a safe, trauma-informed container led by a professional facilitator. Rooted in ancient tradition, it invites deep introspection, emotional clarity, and connection to self, to others, and something greater. Compared to most clinical settings, this particular ceremonial setting is more immersive, prayerful, and inherently connected to the Earth.
Though vitally important, we don’t treat the ceremony as an end goal, but rather as a doorway.
An access point. What follows afterward in the slow unfolding of integration is equally, if not even more important. We believe that healing is a lifetime devotion, and the ceremony is the first powerul and courageous step forward in that journey.
Alongside the participants’ stories and woven throughout, the film features reflections from facilitators, elders, and indigenous wisdom keepers. These voices offer deeper cultural, spiritual, and emotional perspectives, appearing throughout as steadying reflections within the journey while honoring the lineages and stewards of this path. The visual language is slow, alive, and textured.
We boldly step into the heart of the ceremony, not as a spectacle, but as an opportunity to understand more deeply.
To connect our hearts to the altar with respect and reverence. We don’t dramatize the pain. We don’t manufacture transformation. We let it breathe. We let it be messy, tender, silent, and sacred - exactly as it is. Through the act of witnessing others heal, the viewer is invited inward to feel, reflect and remember. For some, especially those who are unable to participate in psychedelic ceremonies themselves (due to health, contraindications, or access) this act of witnessing can serve as a powerful form of connection and transformation. Into an Open Space is not just a film. It is an experience - an invitation to slow down, to listen deeply, and to remember what matters.
It is a prayer for healing.
TRAILER
WHY THIS FILM MATTERS
We are living in an unprecedented mental health crisis - and what we’re doing about it doesn’t seem to be working.
Roughly 1 in 5 U.S. adults - about 59.3 million people - experienced mental illness in 2021, yet less than half received treatment¹. Suicide rates have surged to record highs, with 49,449 Americans dying by suicide in 2022 - the highest number ever recorded². Meanwhile, more than 13% of U.S. adults take antidepressants, with use especially high among women over 60³. Despite increased access to medication and therapy, many people continue to silently carry anxiety, grief, and a sense of emotional disconnection. They try what’s available - and still feel like something is missing.
This film is a response to the moment we’re in.
It offers a grounded, intimate window into how psychedelics are used outside the clinic - in ceremonial settings rooted in ritual, reverence, and relationship. Into an Open Space isn’t a story about symptoms or clinical solutions. It’s about people. It’s about witnessing the nonlinear, relational unfolding of healing. It’s about asking what it really looks like - how it moves through our emotions, relationships, and connection to the earth. This is not a film about answers. It’s a space for reflection and resonance. And in a world where so many are quietly suffering, it offers a rare and necessary invitation:
To reconnect. To be seen.
To imagine a new way forward.
¹ SAMHSA, 2021 National Survey on Drug Use and Health
² CDC, Suicide Mortality in the U.S., 2022
³ CDC, Antidepressant Use Among Adults, 2015–2018
DIRECTOR’S NOTE
Healing, for me, has never been about fixing what is broken. It’s been about remembering what is true.
Like so many other people, I reached a point in my life where the conventional answers and approaches no longer felt like enough. I knew there had to be a different way. Another path.
That path led me back to the earth, with the plants as my teachers, and to a deeper understanding of healing as a sacred, ongoing relationship - to self, to spirit, and to life itself. That voice - and the path it invites us to walk - isn’t unique to me. It lives within all of us. This is a choice to tell that story.
Into an Open Space is not just a film. It’s a reflection of the human story we all hold within us. It’s about returning to a way of being that honors the wisdom within our bodies, the medicine within the plants, and the intelligence of the unseen.
It is a living prayer.
As someone who has spent the last decade guiding people through sacred ceremony, I’ve learned that true healing does not arrive in a flash of light.
It unfolds slowly. In stillness, discomfort, trust, and surrender. It is the balance of pain and reverence. It is embraced, not forced. It is relational, not transactional. It is entirely unique and collectively shared.
Into an Open Space is not here to educate, nor to claim it has the answers.
It is an experiential process.
An opportunity to feel.
To see ourselves more clearly.
As we look into the journeys of others, we witness our own. Mirroring and reflecting similar challenges and choices. Illuminating the courage it takes to say yes to what is real, and connecting us through the shared experience of being alive - in all of its complexity.
We walk with real people through their journeys - not to heal or fix them, but to witness and relate to the imperfect evolution of their process. There is no preaching or promises here - only presence.
This film is for the curious. For the ones who sense there’s something beneath the surface— something worth slowing down for. It’s not here to teach or to claim.
It’s here to invite you into an experience.
To sit with something real.
To be alongside it. Within it.
To feel the pause, the breath, and the silence between words. To remember what it means to be human, together.
—Ima Rao, Director
Into an Open Space
CHARACTERS & SUBJECTS
Participants: The People We Walk With
Into an Open Space follows a small group of real people navigating deeply personal healing journeys. While each character’s story is unique, together they form a rich and emotionally layered portrait of transformation. We meet individuals, couples, and families - people carrying grief, trauma, questions, and hope. While their life situations may be very different, what they all share is the willingness and courage to choose to turn inward and meet themselves where they are at. Each participant is featured as an individual, with their own unique voice, history, and emotional landscape. In some cases, we also witness their relational dynamics - between father and daughter, between partners - offering an intimate look at how healing moves not just through the self, but through connection. For some, this is their first psychedelic journey. Others have been here before, but healing continues to unfold in unexpected ways. The film honors the truth that healing is not a single moment, but a continuing process of becoming. We are currently in the casting phase and are seeking people who are ready and open to sharing their stories with honesty and heart.
Experts: Voices of Wisdom
In parallel to the participants’ journeys, the film features interwoven reflections from elders, facilitators, and guides. These voices offer a grounding presence, cultural and spiritual context, and a broader lens through which to understand each personal story. Rather than acting as detached experts, they appear as part of the living conversation, offering insight, holding space, and reminding us that healing has deep roots and many paths.These voices offer deeper cultural, spiritual, and emotional perspectives grounding, appearing throughout as steadying reflections within the journey while honoring the lineages and stewards of this path.
VISUAL & STYLISTIC APPROACH
Into an Open Space unfolds like a journey - its visual style evolving alongside the emotional arc of the film. What begins grounded and intimate expands into something more expressive, experimental, and elemental. As the participants move through their transformation, so does the filmmaking, inviting the audience to feel that shift not just in story, but in sensation. From the very first frames, the natural world is a central character. Water, fire, wind, earth, and light are present throughout - woven into the fabric of the film as quiet metaphors for change, reflection, and renewal. A breeze rustling through trees, sunlight flickering on skin, mountains rising in the distance - these images offer breath, grounding, and meaning without words.
Before Ceremony (Verité Grounded + Breathable Space)
We meet participants in the lead-up to the ceremony through observational, vérité-style scenes. Filmed in wide open spaces - the landscapes create space to breathe, offering viewers a sense of presence and reflection. Interviews are filmed outdoors in soft natural light, inviting intimacy without intrusion. The style here is simple, sincere, and human, meeting people exactly where they are at.
During Ceremony (Intimate + Expansive)
As participants enter the ceremony, the film enters a more immersive and layered visual language. We stay present with the unfolding process - capturing live music, prayer, and moments of stillness. Macro details, slow motion, and gentle superimpositions express the depth and texture of the psychedelic experience, without relying on artificial effects. The visual palette opens, inviting a sense of mystery and awe, while remaining rooted in real-time presence.
After Ceremony (Surreal Expression + Real-Life Integration)
As we check in with our participants during their integration after the ceremony and back into their real lives, the visual style tone continues to expand.” Here, we blend real-life integration with moments of poetic abstraction. Everyday scenes are intercut with expressive visuals - subtle dreamscapes that reflect the long tail of healing. It’s a dance between the visible and invisible, the ordinary and the sacred.
MOODBOARD
COMPARABLE FILMS
These films reflect a growing cultural interest in healing from mental health challenges and stories of personal transformation. Into an Open Space builds on this momentum with a unique focus on psychedelic ceremony, relational healing, and an immersive experience of the process.
From Shock to Awe (2018)
This documentary follows two U.S. veterans as they leave behind pharmaceuticals and participate in psychedelic ceremonies to treat PTSD. Filmed over several months, it captures emotional breakthroughs through a vérité lens. Into an Open Space shares this longform structure but expands the frame, featuring a more diverse group of participants and healing contexts.
The Work (2017)
Shot inside Folsom Prison, this vérité documentary captures a four-day group therapy retreat between incarcerated men and civilians. Though not about psychedelics, it offers an unfiltered view of emotional release and healing in real time. Into an Open Space shares this emphasis on raw emotional process, but within a ceremonial container.
The Wisdom of Trauma (2021)
Featuring Dr. Gabor Maté, this documentary reframes trauma as the root cause of emotional, physical, and societal suffering. It blends expert insight with personal narratives, advocating for healing through compassion and presence. While it doesn’t feature psychedelics, The Wisdom of Trauma shares the belief of Into an Open Space - that healing happens through connection, being seen, supported, and understood.
How to Change Your Mind (2022)
This Netflix docuseries presents the history and therapeutic potential of psychedelics through the lens of author Michael Pollan. Each episode explores a different substance using expert interviews, archival footage, and storytelling. Into an Open Space takes a different approach - immersing the viewer in real-time ceremonial experiences and focusing on the emotional, relational, and long-term impact of psychedelic journeys, rather than explaining them from the outside.
AUDIENCE
This film is for people quietly carrying pain - those moving through anxiety, burnout, grief, or a persistent sense that something is off. Life might look fine from the outside, but inside, it feels hollow or stuck. Some have tried therapy or medication. Others have kept going, hoping the feeling would pass. They may not think of themselves as “on a healing journey,” and they’ve likely never considered psychedelics.
We also speak to those who are already on the path. People exploring emotional regulation, trauma work, somatics, or plant medicine. They’ve started to ask deeper questions about how healing works, and they resonate with stories that are honest, vulnerable, and spiritually grounded.
And finally, this film is for the guides - the therapists, artists, facilitators, and space holders who support others through transformation. They are often values-based, emotionally attuned, and devoted to creating new models of care. This audience will see their work reflected in the integrity of the process we share.
Into an Open Space meets people where they are - whether they’re just beginning to ask if there’s another way, or have already devoted their lives to finding it.
TEAM & COLLABORATORS
IMA, Director
Ima Rao is a ceremonial guide, somatic facilitator, musician, and filmmaker whose work bridges healing, storytelling, and spiritual integrity. For over a decade, he has led immersive retreats and private ceremonies rooted in sacred plant medicines and trauma-informed care. He holds a Master’s Degree in Nonprofit Management and previously co-founded an international youth empowerment organization. He is passionate about supporting our next generation while honoring our elders and indigenous medicine carriers. Ima is the founder of The Temple of the Eagle and Condor, a church dedicated to liberation and truth. Into an Open Space is his directorial debut.
CAZ, Producer
Caz Tanner is a filmmaker and producer with over a decade of experience creating global video content. She holds an MSc in Consciousness, Spirituality, and Transpersonal Psychology from Liverpool John Moores University, with a dissertation on psilocybin-assisted therapy, and a BA in Film and Media Production from Indiana University. Her work spans from award-winning branded series to impact-driven documentary films like Slum Dreams and In Her Shoes: India. Caz is passionate about the healing power of storytelling and believes media can shift consciousness and support transformation - both personal and collective.
KELSEY, Cinematographer
Kelsey Erin Sky is a visionary artist and mystic known for masterfully capturing people and environments in their highest light. Kelsey has a BFA in Communication Design from MIAD and spent several years as Senior Art Director for BVK Milwaukee’s top healthcare & tourism accounts while creating award-winning non-profit public service campaigns for national issues like human trafficking, domestic abuse and infant mortality. Alongside her art, Kelsey is a voice for Consciousness and shares fringe wisdom inspired by her Native American, Hindu & Advaita Vedanta lineages. Into an Open Space is her debut as a Cinematographer.
RICHARD, Executive Producer
Richard Preston Nash IV is a philanthropist, martial artist, and student of natural medicine. With an academic background in ecology, his explorations have led him from outdoor education and wilderness guiding to herbal medicine making and agriculture. His personal philosophy is centered in a mission of sharing generationally accumulated wealth to create sacred containers, educational programs, and embodied experiences that reconnect us with an innate human culture rooted in the wisdom of nature. Richard is currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in traditional Chinese medicine.
CALL TO ACTION
We are currently seeking support to bring the next phase of Into an Open Space to life.
Immediate Need: $111,000 for July 2025 Shoot
Help fund our first principal production window, capturing real journeys of healing through ceremony.
Casting Call: Participants
We are looking for individuals open to exploring psychedelic ceremony for the first time, especially those navigating anxiety, grief, burnout, or disconnection, and wondering if there might be another way.
Click here for more info on the casting call.
We’re also seeking:
• Philanthropic partners and aligned sponsors
•Experts, elders, and ceremonial guides
•Community partners for screenings and outreach
•Academics, psychiatrists, and open-minded skeptics
This is a film built on trust, transformation, and collaboration.
We’d love to connect with you.
Email us at: intoanopenspace@gmail.com