Sedan, France 2007

Jan was staying in a hotel situated in the Château Fort complex. We drove there and entered the room, where some relaxed music was playing on Jan's iPod connected to a speaker dock. Jan's girlfriend, Anne (cinematographer of D'autres Mondes), and his child were in another room, getting ready to leave. Things looked like they'd already packed most of their gear, so I decided to get down to business straight away and started a conversation with Jan.

Izmar: "So tell me, what are these cacti doing in Blueberry? I mean, from your preparations [drinking ayahuasca with Peruvian shamans regularly], and looking at the contents and overall atmosphere of the visuals of the trips in Blueberry, you'd say it's supposed to be about ayahuasca, right?"

Blueberry: The spiral-shaped vine is ayahuasca

Jan: "Yeah, but if you look in the movie, you can see a piece of the ayahuasca vine next to the cacti. I've seen people on the internet talk about this as well, and hardly anyone mentions the vine. Many people still seem to think the sacrament they're taking is san pedro or peyote, but also by the color of the drink you can see it's about ayahuasca."

Izmar: "One could contest that the drink was a very concentrated, very boiled down cactus infusion."

Jan: "That's not a common practice in traditional san pedro or peyote use - it's typical to ayahuasca."

Izmar: "Did you take san pedro or peyote?"

Jan: "Yes, a couple of times, but I'm far more experienced and involved with ayahuasca."

Izmar: "So you're involved with the Shipibo culture, and have taken ayahuasca with their shamans on a number of occasions. Which other ethnic groups did you join in their ceremonies?"

Jan: "I've taken ayahuasca with Shuar, Shipibo, Quechua, and mestizos from Iquitos and Pucallpa."

Izmar: "Tell me about a memorable experience."

Jan: "I once drank a special kind of brew, it was very strong and very long-lasting. It was made of Banisteriopsis caapi, Psychotria viridis, toé, san pedro, coca and something else."

Izmar: "And did you take the whole Blueberry-crew into the jungle to get them to produce to those amazing visuals? Can you please tell me how you accomplished this?"

Jan and Romuald

Jan: "Well, I went to artschool, so I made drawings of my visions and talked it over with the respected Shipibo shaman Guillermo Arévalo, also called Questembetsa. He's also in my movie, and I drank ayahuasca with him many times. So we'd sit and talk about my drawings, and he'd help getting a clear idea of what should actually be the contents of the visions in the movie. You can see exactly this in the bonus material of the documentary, Other Worlds or d'Autres Mondes limited edition."

Izmar: "How many people was the total special effects crew who made the visions?"

Jan: "The visions were made during the course of a year, by a team of in total 40 people. Some of the software they use is written by themselves."

Izmar: "The result is great, what did your friends from Peru think of it?"

Jan: "Oh, they were happy with Blueberry. Everybody liked it there. They even asked me for another project."

Izmar: "Cool, what kind of project?"

Jan: "I can't say anything about that right now..."

Izmar: "But I mean, there's nothing at all you can tell about? There has to be something you can disclose."

Jan: "Well, it's an animation film, for kids. It's about the mythology of the Shipibo. You see, Guillermo and the rest of the people liked Blueberry a lot, but now they want me to do their story. Blueberry takes place in an imaginary setting with an imaginary culture - it's various things mixed together. Guillermo now asked me to make a film about their mythology, such as Ronin, the cosmic serpent [that J. Narby also wrote about in his book The Cosmic Serpent]. Since 2 or 3 years I'm seeing more and more mythological themes in my visions, so this is interwoven with the project."

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