Wetiko, from writer-director Kerry Mondragón, is an audacious and visually hypnotic film centered on a young Maya man thrust into the depths of a mystical and dangerous spiritual conflict.
The jungle-set psychedelic thriller film stars Juan Daniel García Treviño as Aapo, alongside Neil Sandilands as the charismatic and unsettling shaman Zake Zezo, Dalia Xiuhcoatl, Jordan Barrett, Bárbara de Regil, and Carlos Emilio Báez in supporting roles.
Shot on 16 mm deep within the Yucatán jungle and including dialogue in Spanish, Maya, English, and even a fictional language, Wetiko takes viewers into a visceral, sensory cinematic experience.
Wetiko first captured attention on the festival circuit with its World Premiere at the New Orleans Film Festival in 2022, followed by screening at the Stockholm International Film Festival. It is set to open in select U.S. theaters beginning March 2, 2026, with exclusive runs at Alamo Drafthouse locations.
Deep in the dense jungles of the Yucatan, where the air hums and the ground seems alive, Wetiko follows Aapo, a young Maya man trying to survive the modern hustle without losing his roots. When he takes a quick-cash job for his family-owned pet store delivering hallucinogenic bufo toads to a remote jungle ceremony, it feels like an easy score. One trip in, one trip out.
What begins as a promise of transcendence inside a shady eco-village quickly reveals itself as something far more dangerous. Led by Zake Zezo (Neil Sandilands, Sweet Tooth, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes), a smooth-talking, bloodthirsty shaman who feeds on belief, fear and control, the ceremony peddles enlightenment to Western spiritual tourists and new age seekers. But as the powerful drugs kick in, reality fractures — time bends, the jungle pulses, and Aapo is trapped in a hallucinatory war zone.
As paranoia spikes and alliances collapse, Aapo realizes Wetiko isn’t a myth but a sickness — greed, consumption, and spiritual rot spreading fast. Hunted, high and unraveling, he must choose whether to become another casualty — or break the cycle before the jungle swallows him whole.
Director Kerry Mondragón said, “This story came to me while struggling with my own identity, as a half-Latino but white passing American who grew up in the Southwest. One aspect of my childhood involved facing the horrors of a seemingly perfect Catholic elementary school. But another side of my life involved attending Native American church meetings with my father on the weekend—witnessing the magic of plants as medicine. The word Wetiko was used to describe the white man’s disease of selfishness, the conquistadors’ spirit rotten with greed.”
He added, “While writing this script, I had to make sure that I was not the Wetiko who is unconsciously a participant in a second conquest of Mexico, which has not come to kill the culture but instead buy it.”
Watch the official trailer for Wetiko above.
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