THE HOLY GIVE ME (2013) - 30:00 min

Since 1998, church members of Santo Daime and União de Vegetal, Brazilian syncretic religions that brew and drink the sacrament Ayahuasca, have been arrested in the United States, Germany, France, Holland, Spain, Italy, Australia, Ireland, and England. Misinformation in western nations has led to the classification of Ayahuasca as a destructive, hard drug. Ironically, Ayahuasca has been known to cure heroin, cocaine, alcohol, and other substance addictions. If people were being healed of everything from dyslexia to terminal cancer and making years of psychoanalytic progress in a single session, all within the context of a legal church in Brazil, why should this elixir that facilitates communion with the divine be worthy of punishment by numerous governments?

Cohen made this film to reveal the value of this sacrament in the Amazon, Europe, and the US, from miraculous healings to horrific arrests and triumphant legalization.

Santo Daime means “holy give me” as in “give me love, give me strength, give me health.”