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WISDOM OF THE ANCESTORS, 12-FILM SERIES | NOW LIVE

Join the Film Premiere of Katô: Dreams of Dark Earth
Plus a 3-Day Online Event with Amazonian Leaders
March 18 – 20, 2026

Join the Film Premiere of Katô
Plus a 3-Day Online Event with
Amazonian Leaders
March 18 – 20, 2026

"Without the forest, we don’t have our memory.”
— Vandria Borari, Indigenous lawyer, artist & activist

Register to view the FULL film and gain access to the 3-Day Online Event with Amazonian Leaders. You’ll be invited to make a donation of any amount (even $0), with the option to upgrade to the 12-film journey and talk series.

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Available in the following languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, French, Italian, and German.

PREMIERE DATE

MARCH 18, 2026

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THE VISION

Our vision for the 12-film documentary series is to honor Indigenous resilience, illuminate sacred wisdom held for humanity and Earth, and invite healing across communities facing trauma and colonial erasure.

About the film

Travel deep into the Tapajós River basin, to the Amazonian village of Sawré Muybu, where the Munduruku people of Sawré Muybu are fighting for the sanctity of their dreams. Mercury from illegal gold mining does not just poison the water; it severs the ancestral memory that flows between the body and the river.  

Katô follows the Munduruku through their decades-long struggle for land and clean water, revealing a world where daily survival is an act of resistance.

Refusing to wait for government recognition, the community has taken up the mantle of self-demarcation, putting their bodies on the line to map their own return. Supporting them is a women-led video collective that transforms cameras into visual arrows, documenting the destruction while affirming a vitality that cannot be extracted. By reclaiming the Katô—the ancestral Dark Earth—the Munduruku remind us that the soil is a living witness. Their fight for the land is not merely local; it is a desperate defense of the lungs of Mother Earth, upon which all life depends.

The Guardians

JOIN US FOR THE GLOBAL FILM PREMIERE + 3-DAY ONLINE EVENT
MARCH 18 – 20, 2026

Katô: Dreams of Dark Earth Global Online Journey Schedule

Live Talks and Q&A with Amazonian Leaders

DAY 1

Opening the Circle

w/ Zaya and Maurizio Benazzo

FILM COMMUNAL SCREENING
In Conversation

w/ Joe Williams

Time: A Poem

w/ Dr (Uncle) Paul Gordon

DAY 2

We Al-li: Culturally Informed Trauma Integrated Healing

w/ Judy Atkinson, Caroline Atkinson

We will explore in community:

  • Trauma is held in bodies, lands, and lineages
  • Healing grounded in culture, Country and community
  • On Loss and Grief
Healing the Bloodlines Within

w/ Kylie Marjambi, Jarmbi Miles

We will explore in community:

  • Honoring intergenerational pain and resilience carried through lineage
  • Making space for what was silenced, withheld, or forgotten
  • Inviting cultural and ancestral reconnection as a form of repair
When Breath Meets Fire

w/ Jarmbi Miles

DAY 3

A Sound That Knows Its Way Home

w/ Dhinawan Baker

Short Film: BAMA

w/ Jahvis Loveday

We will explore in community:

  • Through years and years of memories I have captured with my family, I bring to you BAMA, an indigenous film starring my little brother Elijah Loveday.
Culture, Identity, and Intergenerational Story

w/ Dhinawan Baker, Jahvis Loveday

We will explore in community:

  • Identity is shaped through living connection to culture and Country
  • Practicing culture keeps memory, law, and belonging alive
  • Cultural knowledge lives on when it’s shared across generations
Short Film: Bangay (Spear) Lore

w/ Jahvis Loveday

We will explore in community:

  • Baŋgay Lore (Dyirbal for “spear”) is a deeply personal short film that follows a young Aboriginal dancer navigating the painful divide between celebrating culture on stage and being denied the right to live it in everyday life, revealing how cultural expression, hunting rights, and identity must coexist if our families and jarjums are to remain strong.

WISDOM OF THE ANCESTORS 12–FILM SERIES

The Eternal Song

Over the next two years, we will release a total of 12 full-length films featuring different indigenous traditions. Each film opens a portal into the ancestral wisdom of these cultures, calling us to remember, grieve, heal, and act.

The Eternal Song

LAND: EARTH

92 Minutes • WATCH NOW

Mauri

LAND: AOTEAROA (NEW ZEALAND)

70 Minutes • WATCH NOW

If an Owl
Calls Your Name

LAND: Esk’etemc, Gitxsan, and Wet’suwet’en (CANADA)

92 MINUTES • WATCH NOW

In the Circle
of Life

LAND: BUNDJALUNG & WIRADJURI (AUSTRALIA)

75 Minutes • WATCH NOW

Katô: Dreams
of Dark Earth

LAND: DAJE KAPAP EYPI (BRAZIL)

76 MINUTES • PREMIERE NOW

Little Singer

LAND: DINÉ BIKÉYAH (ARIZONA)

81 MINUTES • COMING APRIL 2026

Sila

LAND: KALAALLIT NUNAAT (GREENLAND)

COMING 2026

Kuleana

LAND: MOKUPUNI HAWAI’I

COMING 2026

Guarani-Kaiowá

LAND: MATO GROSSO DO SUL (BRAZIL)

COMING 2026

Maasai

LAND: OLOSHO LE MAA (KENYA)

COMING 2027

Haida

LAND: HAIDA GWAII (CANADA)

COMING 2027

Ifá

LAND: TSENACOMOCO (VIRGINIA)

COMING 2027

The Eternal Song

LAND: EARTH

Mauri

LAND: AOTEAROA (NEW ZEALAND)

If an Owl Calls
Your Name

LAND: UNIST’OT’EN YIN’TAH (CANADA)

In the
Circle of Life

LAND: BUNDJALUNG & WIRADJURI (AUSTRALIA)

Katô:
Dreams of Dark Earth

LAND: DAJE KAPAP EYPI (BRAZIL)

Sila

LAND: KALAALLIT NUNAAT (GREENLAND)

Little Singer

LAND: DINÉ BIKÉYAH (ARIZONA)

Kuleana

LAND: MOKUPUNI HAWAI’I

Guarani-Kaiowá

LAND: MATO GROSSO DO SUL (BRAZIL)

Maasai

LAND: OLOSHO LE MAA (KENYA)

Haida

LAND: HAIDA GWAII (CANADA)

Ifá

LAND: TSENACOMOCO (VIRGINIA)

Sign up below for the Global Film Premiere of Katô: Dreams of Dark Earth
Plus a 3-Day Online Event with Amazonian Leaders
March 18 – 20, 2026
Name(Required)
Untitled(Required)
They biblicized our names and our places. There was this transformation and excessive prohibition of our culture, like singing, dancing, worshiping our creator. They arrived without understanding, and we, Indigenous people, were not prepared to receive them.
Carlos Tukano, Indigenous leader & activist
When we talk about the river or the forest, we are talking about a life that nourishes everyone. The river itself is a life.
Juarez Saw Munduruku, Indigenous leader & chief of Sawré Muybu village
Rich or poor, money-seeker or not, we will all suffer in the same way. You may want capital, profit, a good car, the best technology, but you forgot that this tree here is what gives you life. It's what allows you to breathe.
Alessandra Korap Munduruku
Without the forest, we don't have our memory.
Vandria Borari, Indigenous lawyer, artist & activist
I always say that the river was my teacher. It was the one that told me who I am.
Vandria Borari, Indigenous lawyer, artist & activist
When we talk about protecting Indigenous people, protecting their rights and cultures, we are talking about the protection of all people… Even though we, Indigenous people, make up only 5% of the world's population, we protect 82% of the living biodiversity in the world today.
Sônia Guajajara, Minister of Indigenous Peoples in Brazil
We reclaim this knowledge through dreams, through the spirits that accompany them. They are our spiritual guides. Many people say dreams are our libraries. They are not in universities—they are in spirituality and in the territory.
Vandria Borari, Indigenous lawyer, artist & activist
The drying up of streams, rivers, and waterways directly affects our culture, the alteration of our way of life, because people need to seek outside what they can no longer find within their territories.
Sônia Guajajara, Minister of Indigenous Peoples in Brazil
Everything is sacred to us. Our ancestors lived their lives as if they were spirits themselves. Our grandparents turned into trees, our cousins turned into birds, and we feel this connection. We live in relationship and respect for nature because our blood, our bodies are immersed in it.
Beka Saw Munduruku, Indigenous leader & founder of Daje Kepap Epy audiovisual collective
Our ancestors remained silent about their culture, their practices. It was a way of resisting… a strategy to survive that moment of slavery, denial of history, denial of their language, denial of their identity.
Vandria Borari, Indigenous lawyer, artist & activist
Music brings power to us when we are together, because it brings a message of healing from the forest. It speaks of the river, of our spirituality. When we women sing, we are in synchrony.
Vandria Borari, Indigenous lawyer, artist & activist
I picked up the camera...I realized that we had a weapon in our hands that is very useful for our fight, for our people. We have a saying, ‘The arrow of this journey is our camera.
Aldira Akai Munduruku, Indigenous leader
BROUGHT TO YOU BY

SAND is a nonprofit organization under section 501.c.3 of the US tax code. Its headquarters are on the unceded ancestral territories of Coastal Miwok and Southern Pomo Land in Sebastopol, CA. We thank the past, current, and future Indigenous stewards of this territory.

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH
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