The Holy Give Me — A Call to Religious Freedom is a documentary feature film about a sacrament from the Amazon rainforest used for thousands of years by indigenous shamans for visioning, healing and communing with the Divine. Less than a hundred years ago a Brazilian religion was born in the Western Amazon using this sacrament made with a vine of one plant and the leaf of another.

Though the religious use of the sacrament is legal in Brazil, Holland and Spain, governments in more than ten countries have been persecuting church members. This violation of religious freedom is based on misinformation, leading governments to classify the sacred tea as a hard drug; in the United States it is a “schedule 1 narcotic.” To the contrary, it has been known to cure heroin, cocaine and alcohol addiction and in many instances, everything from dyslexia to “terminal” cancer. Scientific studies have demonstrated positive psychological, societal and medical results. In a small village in the heart of the Amazon where canoe builders and rubber tappers settled, the first thing to touch the lips of an infant when it’s born is the sacrament. While there is a very high child mortality rate in most of Amazonia, in this community there is almost none.

For the indigenous people of the Amazon, their Rainforest is like the library of Alexandria in ancient Egypt. Each species has a story to tell. Instead of learning and utilizing the knowledge found in the plants we are burning them. This ancient knowledge (the basis of many modern medicines) needs protection for its incalculable potential value. Indigenous cultures are the custodians of this knowledge. In our protecting them, they protect the forest. The forest being the lungs of the world, keep us alive