Houseboat Amazon Documentary

Investments go directly toward post-production of the Houseboat Amazon documentary. Investors wishing for a business plan from Houseboat Amazon LLC can request a copy. Film credits available as executive producers depending on donation amount. Contact us at: houseboatamazon@gmail.com for details!

This film is intended to be a powerful tool for engaging an audience for whom real rainforest exploration is a complete mystery. We will discuss the need for eco-literacy in countries like the United States and how urban actions impact people in small rainforest communities that seem remote and disconnected from us.

We filmed our five-month expedition so that science could be made available to everyone, immersing the audience in our daily lives as we lived and worked together on a 60-foot houseboat, where we spoke Portuguese, English and Spanish.

*Our flagship with Cruzeiro do Sul and Houseboat Amazon banners!*

*Our team was from many countries: Mexico, USA, Brazil and Colombia.*

By filming in the Amazon forest, we worked to shed preconceived notions about biological research and invite the audience to explore with us the awe of the daily science discovery. Our main research goal was to uncover the mystery surrounding the existence of an elusive “flying” saki monkey that had not been seen alive for over 80 years. The film follows a rainforest detective story to find this missing monkey.

Dr. Laura K. Marsh, our project leader, named our expedition Houseboat Amazon and organized an international team of wildlife professionals, students and scientists from Brazil, the United States, Columbia and Mexico. From January to May 2017, a Brazilian captain, his crew and rural guides joined us on the journey along three tributaries of the Upper Juruá River.

*Laura K. Marsh and the Houseboat mural*

*Laura K. Marsh on the roof of Houseboat with HBA flag*

Join us in hand-carved canoes as we glide through flooded forest—and pull up your rubber boots to follow us through the challenging terrain of the rainforest. We will show you amazing creatures, record new species, and show you the work we did with local people to discover the forest foods they eat and how they live in remote rainforest communities.

In modern society, we are disconnected from nature. We yearn to touch our internal wild-ness. We suit up, go to work in an indoor office and hunger to be connected to something native, raw, intense. When viewers follow the expedition, they see wildness existing somewhere, affirming that it also exists in them. Our intention with Houseboat Amazon is to remind us of who we are at our core: intense, curious, and excited.

Find your passion hidden in a tangle of vines,

the splash of a pink dolphin,

or the whisper of a bat’s wings in the dark.

And maybe, just maybe, find it in a fluffy missing monkey.

Become the wild in the wilderness. Join us to find your heart in the jungle.

-Houseboat Amazon

Houseboat Amazon LLC and GCI Productions are proud to announce collaboration with HEAR KITTY SOUND PRODUCTION of Albuquerque, NM for initial post-production work. Andy Fink (ACE) is directing and editing the final draft (2024).

Christina Selby, Houseboat Amazon's embedded journalist, shoots into a soft lightbox on the upper deck of the barco (in the Research Palace!). Small rainforest creatures like frogs were captured, photographed, and released back where they were collected. Photo by Laura K Marsh

Even while sailing in the Amazon, Juan Pablo was busy editing content! Photo by Juan Pablo Bueno

Juan Pablo Bueno shoots with the AC90 camcorder in a swamp. Photo by Shayna Whitaker

Juan Pablo Bueno Gomez working in a swamp, photo by LKM

Laura gets her turn in our interview studio! Photo by Juan Pablo Bueno

The "stage" for interviews, complete with sun blocking sheets! Photo by Laura K Marsh