INTO AN OPEN SPACE
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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.
TRAILER
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We are currently seeking support to bring the next phase of Into an Open Space to life.
Immediate Need: $195,000
We’ve just returned from filming our first episode of Into an Open Space and our retreat with our 3 participants, and what unfolded there was nothing short of extraordinary. The healing we witnessed—raw, relational, and deeply human—was mirrored in the footage we captured: intimate, spacious, and full of emotional truth. Storylines emerged with depth and resonance, and the landscape itself held us with reverence.
Now, we enter the next phase: post-production. We are urgently raising funds to begin editing immediately, so that this transformative material can come alive on screen. With Episode 1 complete, we are highly confident that the series will be picked up by distribution partners and embraced by impact organizations—opening the door to full season funding and wide-reaching resonance.
Your continued support will help us move the project forward and means the world to us!
BECOME AN INVESTOR
Support Into an Open Space as an Executive Producer—which means becoming an equity investor in the film—and help bring this powerful documentary series into the world.
As an equity investor, you’ll receive 115% of your investment back before any profits are shared, plus a proportional share of 50% of all net proceeds. This is a rare opportunity to support purposeful cinema with strong cultural and commercial potential.
Your investment enables us to complete Episode 1, the cornerstone of the full series. The edit process will take approximately 12 months, after which we’ll begin pitching to distribution partners and collaborating with aligned impact organizations to expand the series’ reach.
INVESTOR TERMS
Minimum Investment: $33,000
Recoupment: You receive 115% of your investment back before any profits are shared
Profit Sharing: Following recoupment, 50% of net proceeds are allocated proportionally among executive producers
Credit: All Executive Producers will be credited in the main titles and end credits of the final film
WHAT YOUR INVESTMENT SUPPORTS
Your investment will enable the completion of Episode 1, a fully realized pilot of the series that will form the foundation of our season pitch. Funds will support:
Post-production: Editing for the first episode, including hiring an editor
Paying our full crew from Episode 1 for their time, skill, and heart
Filming the unfolding stories of our three participants over the next 9 months, capturing the long arc of integration and transformation
Ongoing integration care: group calls, 1:1 emotional check-ins, and nervous system support sessions with our somatic therapist
Distribution outreach and collaboration with aligned impact organizations once Episode 1 is complete
PROJECT TIMELINE
Episode 1 Editing Timeline: ~12 months from funding to finished cut
Next Steps Post-Edit: Pitch to distribution partners and impact organizations to secure full season support
If you are interesting in joining us, please talk to one of our team members, fill out a contact form below or email us at:
intoanopenspace@gmail.com
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.
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 nor 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
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 Bloomington based 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.