Dreams of Dark Earth: From the Heart of the Amazon
​Film by Zaya & Maurizio Benazzo, Founders of SAND​
A 3-Day Online Event with Amazonian Leaders
18-21 March 2026

The Amazon is a living library of ancestral wisdom. This new film invites you to see the Amazon not through a typical Western film but rather through an Indigenous perspective, where humans are inseparable from nature. Beka Saw Munduruku explains in the film that trees, birds, and rivers are literal "relatives" and "cousins."

Many in the West consider the Amazon a natural resource, a vital carbon sink. The film illustrates that for Indigenous peoples, however, it is a living web of relationships and a repository of ancestral wisdom.

And as Vandria Borari notes, Indigenous knowledge is not found in universities but is stored in the "library" of the territory and accessed through dreams and spiritual guides. This indigenous worldview can teach us how to move from domination to mutual respect and from separation to meaningful connection.

Protecting Indigenous territories safeguards biodiversity, limits carbon emissions, and sustains ecosystems far beyond the Amazon. Indigenous leadership, activism, and cultural preservation are directly linked to planetary health.

When you join the premiere event for this upcoming documentary, you’ll receive full access to the Live 3-day online event, held alongside the global film premiere.

The film is available to stream by donation of any amount, including $0. This offering is shared in the spirit of reciprocity, 50% of proceeds (after covering costs) are directed to Indigenous-led initiatives in the lands where the film was made.

Learn more