Deep from the heart of the Amazon, joy is on the line, coming down through the vine… How will you respond to the call?

Honouring the Sacred is a documentary currently in pre-production that seeks to document the voices of the Huni Kui people of the Amazon at a moment of profound change within our world. As they are communicating, they are “currently located on the edge of Indigenous land, the Segredo do Artesão Village faces constant threats due to forest degradation and political challenges. Relocation is essential to protect the community, ensure safety, and enable cultural preservation. Their goal of purchasing land allows the Huni Kuī people to regain control and autonomy, free from external pressures. Our goal is to document their journey as they have invited the outside world to their annual Kayakayawai festival to raise funds for their mission as well as participate in cultural exchange, celebration, and the uplifting joyful - core to the Huni Kui people.

Our crew needs to arrive by April 12th and stay until May 3rd to capture the festival and interview participants afterwards.

Who We Are & Why We Feel the Call

This fundraiser will support the production phase of the film. Six crew members in Brazil; our director Sarah McLeod, two filmmakers Jarrah Hatchett and Orlando Hudson, anthropologist Ruby Barber-McLeod, Sound/researcher Francisco Mendes, and creative producer Foxy-Afra Shazam. It will also support our homebound producer Jodi Donovan, post production sound engineer Mark Franken and social media marketer Jordan Murray.

This film is our crew’s offer of a piece of intentional media in response to the Huni Kui’s messages of joy and co-creation. We are a group of intergenerational filmmakers, artists, and researchers stepping forward in our own unique way to support the preservation and sharing of knowledge.

Who Are the Huni Kui?

The Huni Kui tribe has lived in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon for thousands of years. Despite their late contact with the Western world and the decades of persecution they faced, the Huni Kuī have managed to preserve their spiritual practices, cultural expressions, and strong relationship with nature. The Huni Kuī speak Hãtxa Kuī and live in a bilingual reality, using Portuguese or Spanish as secondary languages. This linguistic diversity reflects their ability to move between their traditional way of life and the modern world.

We are aware of the ways in which the western gaze influences this way of life and this will be an aspect of the story in itself that will continue to unfold and be told. As Westerners it is our responsibility to recognise our positionality in the midst of such a sacred space, and it starts with an honest conversation on how our own cultures and traditions have shaped us and the world. The collision of our Australian identities within the Brazilian Amazonian identities is an exciting place in which we can speak on and explore the unsettling truths that shape the way our different worlds work. We hope that the threads of their stories mixing with the threads of those in attendance will bridge ways of being that have been forgotten, lost, suppressed or otherwise inaccessible until this point in time. Within our differing cultural and lived experiences sits a shared intention — joy; the power of shared joy and the desire to uplift this joy through the medium of film.

The Outcome of the Film

Our goal is to document the journey of an indigenous community who have opened their doors to the outside world, raising funds to relocate their village and support their Non-Governmental Organization, Aldo do Futuro. While we are unsure how much we can realistically raise to make this happen, the goal is that our team would be paid a small stipend and the rest would go to their NGO Aldo Do Futuro. This is first and foremost a film supporting Indigenous ways of being, raising money in support of their cultural preservation, cultural exchanges, and spiritual healings.

Where Your Support Goes

The money we raise now will go toward:

Pay What You Can

If this mission resonates with you, please consider contributing and sharing this campaign far and wide.

How will you respond to the call?