Ayahuasca Documentary Fund

Welcome to an important independent project aiming to document a glimpse into Ayahuasca as treatment for childhood trauma. Please, we need your help.

In a documentary that combines travel and adventure with science and ancient mysticism. Filmmaker Tom Swindell is given access to the first ever UK Government funded medical trial into the traditional plant medicine, Ayahuasca. We follow Dr Simon Ruffell, a psychiatric doctor from London and his colleague Nige Netzband, a psychopharmacologist from Cheshire, as they embark on a journey into the depths of the Amazon Jungle in an attempt to discover the true medical potential of this ancient psychedelic brew. They hope that this controversial work may hold the key to treating the ever-growing mental health crisis in UK.

We have an epidemic in the UK. Anxiety, depression and addiction are growing issues across society. Male suicide is at an all time high. Often, childhood trauma is cited as the root of these problems. Can the psychedelic brew served at the Ayahuasca Foundation ’s research centre in Peru turn participants lives around forever?

Simon and Nige will fly out on January the 5th to begin their trial. Tom will film the medical trials as an observational filmmaker up until the 20th of January where the plot twists as Tom decides to try the medicine for himself and starts a 4 week course at the retreat joining the scientific trial. He will then be documenting his experiences with daily video diaries.

The aim of the course at the Ayahuasca Foundation is to help people process trauma. When Tom was 8 years old, his brother Jamie Swindell died in an accident by snapping his neck on a rope swing in his back garden, he was only 10. Jamie was found hanging.

Tom Swindell grew up to be a documentary filmmaker and has since filmed in over 50 countries. It is now time to turn the camera back on the cameraman so that he gets a true insight into what it is like to participate in the trial. The film will conclude back in London, UK when Simon, Nige, and the wider research team will work to publish the findings of the experiment after a 6 month follow-up of the participants.

All support received for this project will be met with great appreciation and gratitude, from the bottom of our hearts. Thank you, we look forward to sharing with you our journey.



For more information about the filmmaker, please visit:
www.tomswindell.co.uk
www.youtube.com/c/tomswindellpictures