Hallucinogénie invites you on a mesmerizing cinematic journey into the realms of the surreal and the transcendent. Inspired by the concept of photogénie put forth by filmmaker Jean Epstein, our program explores how images on screen can become portals to altered states of consciousness, akin to the enchanting effects of hallucinogens. Laura Irvins refers to photogenie as "a brief moment, the way the actor moves his head, the beauty of a face, a flicker of an expression that seems to contain all the meaning in a scene."
Through a diverse selection, we migrate from the photogenic to the hallucinogenic image. Cinema allows us to not only record but to imagine and project. In this curated attempt, visuals, sounds and narratives intertwine to transport us beyond the boundaries of reality. As we watch and listen, are we experiencing an experimental process? Is this reproduction faithful to what occurred? Does a trip into the inner realms justify the lack of narrative coherence and provide the filmmaker with more of an artistic license?
Through an array of film forms and scientific experiments, we unravel the cinematic mysteries that mesmerize, captivate, and leave us in a trance, much like the transformative power of hallucinogenic experiences themselves.
In 2009 Billy Roisz and her friends and fellow musicians Angelica Castello, Burkhard Stangl and Dieter Kovacic took a trip to Mexico. After starting in Mexico City, they traveled through Michoacán to the peninsula of Yucatán. And the film Chiles en Nogada , about the journey, was creat
In a dark expanse that could be the cosmos, we hear the voice of Arthur C. Clarke, whose face – taken from a BBC archive dating back to the 1960s – appears in the distance. His features quickly dematerialize into a multitude of shimmering pixels, creating an enveloping and immersive spac
Octopus is an experimental, poetic and psychedelic journey about the passage from life to death. Completely shot with a GoPro camera in Bocas del Toro, Panama, Octopus tells the story of a mourning experience portrayed through the drowning of a being who in abandoning reality, leaves the earth and t
In a not-so-far future, an illegal drug is available on the dark web that allows anyone to experience a complete stranger's death. An opportunity arises for terminally ill Salvador and aspiring actor/care worker Gabriel, but ethics and loved ones play on their mind.
The film transports us to a Catalonian fishing village (north of Spain) to discuss the wind with its inhabitants and explore the land's complex geology. The film features a blend of ethereal expositional footage and surrealist imagery, the result of which is part documentary, part surrealist manifes
Documentary on a ritual at the Barquinha church of Antonio Geraldo, in Rio Branco, Acre. Probably the least known emanation of the 'Ayahuasca churches', the Barquinha or 'Little Boat' is nonetheless its most fascinating, a surreal cult mixing a Catholic environment with songs for Jesus and Mary, vis
Entities with Knowledge documents a session of psilocybin assisted therapy that I underwent for the purpose of treating my depression. Threaded through my 'trip' are scenes with people who place psilocybin mushrooms at the forefront of their lives. Taking the audience on a series of hairpin emotiona
"'Forêt d'expérimentation' – the experimental forest, the name of a place, a title, and a statement of intent. The first step into this forest is represented as a black-and-white silhouette, branches against a background of clouds moving rapidly across the sky, with a modulating s
A filmmaker's inquiry into transcendence becomes a three-hour trip across countries and cultures, interconnecting people, places and times. From Toronto, the scene of his childhood, Peter Mettler sets out on a journey that includes evangelism at the airport strip, demolition in Las Vegas, tracings i
Rope Dead is the translation of the Quechua word Ayahuasca: Drink used for conscience and healing. The relationship between the human and the divine indigenous peoples to access altered states of consciousness and heal. The rope and the production of meaning in the territory of the sacred through wh
Her medical options exhausted, an American woman travels to the Amazon in search of a miracle. Thanks to a young ayahuasca shaman who is losing his eyesight, she learns instead to confront her 'susto': the disease of fear. Icaros: a vision' is a story about fear and the release from fear – the
Dreaming means looking beyond the horizon, at a point which is endlessly distant. A poetic circumscription of technoid video feedback processes that generate dream images in this way? dream´sdreams experimentally outlines dream sequences from video feedback material and Möbius sounds. An
When Waldo Vieira chose this between all of Earth's chakras to hold the headquarters of Conscientiology, he knew the science of all sciences would benefit from the pure and living nature flowing through the Iguaçu Falls: there are 275 waterfalls marking the border between Brazil and Argentina
CENTRO ECLÉCTICO FLOR DO LÓTUS ILUMINADO a film by Vincent Moon & Priscilla Telmon, Petites Planètes produced by Fernanda Abreu, Feever Filmes ▼ The Santo Daime doctrine, otherwise known as the 'Ayahuasca Church', have its origins in the city of Rio Branco, in the state of Acre.
Carasoul: a Portrait in Nth Dimensions is an animated surrealist 4K film. The film depicts temporal, immaterial sensations and perceptions as spatially material extensions of the body. This vision of invisible dimensions within a human experience is grounded in biological and biographical forms. Thi
Siegfried A. Fruhauf´s work is preoccupied with exploring the perception of cinematographic movement. Fruhauf often makes use of the individual image, whether in the form of film frames or photographs, which he collages via multiple exposure and structural montage into exhilarating motion stud
A trance dance water implosion, a newer line drawn between secular possession and religious phenomena. Filmed in one shot at a sacred site on the upper Suriname River, the minor secrets of a Saramaccan animist everyday are revealed as time itself is undone. Rites are the new trypps; embodiment is ou
There are mushrooms below me, there' are microbes below me, it's vibrating, it's crazy! Look, light or mushroom thunderstorm? And I have the same inside me: legions of benevolent, working microbes, spores, vitamins, bacteria, and critters that fuel my daily desliming, that keep me going. Without the
From Shock to Awe is a feature-length documentary that follows the journeys of U.S. combat veterans abandoning pharmaceutical drugs to seek relief from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) through the controversial, mind-expanding world of cannabis, ayahuasca, and MDMA. Filmed over three years, it
The Goose a mute young man attempts regain his voice and to escape his oppressive surroundings with the help of an inventive, but behind the times Travel Agent. The Goose must traverse a gauntlet of miscommunication, small town bravado and his Snowbird weirdos to achieve this goal. He meets a woman
Flickering and pulsating, spitting and swallowing at the same time. The screen becomes a vibrating membrane; colours, shapes, beats and sounds a psychedelic whirlpool. A short, fast-paced audiovisual ode to the hypnotic power of colour and vertigo.
Producing a film includes the essential process of creating copies. Duplication is built into the medium itself and moreover, it constitutes an elaborate and decisive phase in the creative realization of a film. The footage of HEAVY EYES (Schwere Augen) evolved over the course of many copy generatio
Oliver Sacks discusses hallucinations—including his own—and how they inform otherworldly beliefs. "I awoke and saw a younger version of my face about two feet away." The hallucinations that accompany sleep paralysis, for instance, can be very vivid and visceral, auditory, visual and tact
DESCENDING THE MOUNTAIN takes us on a journey of mystical revelations, experienced through meditation and psilocybin. To understand how psychedelics reveal the nature of consciousness, psychiatrist Franz and Zen master Vanja guide experienced meditators – who have never used psychedelics befor
n Nepal, an isolated tribe known as the Gurung go on the hunt for a special honey perched high upon a series of cliffs. The honey is known for its hallucinogenic potency, and is often taken for recreational use or medicinal purposes by the villagers. Hallucinogen Honey Hunters takes viewers on a rar
The Entangled Forest is a film which explores the multifaceted interrelationships between trees and fungi within forest ecologies. Featuring the voice of ecologist Suzanne Simard, and her ground-breaking research into tree and fungi communities, the documentary reflects on the 'biological neural net
The Land of Whim, the main character in the film, is a planet invented by the director. Animation is the image of a land ruling by a whim. Everything that exists on the planet is unobvious, chaotic, and changes its shapes and properties. Mutual penetration and transformation of forms, change of plac
**DANGER** View with extreme caution. Two students engineer a way to induce visions of God, then find themselves hunted by a deadly religious sect. WINNER - Best Short - Sci-fi London International Film Festival WINNER - Best Short - Best Music - Best Actor - The British Horror Film Festival WINNER
Peyote to LSD: A Psychedelic Odyssey (also known as Doorway to the Gods) features National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, Author and Harvard ethnobotanist Wade Davis. Loosely based on chapters from Davis's book- One River, this is the story of the last great Explorer-Botanist of the 20th century:
THE MUSHROOM SPEAKS explores the healing qualities of fungi and their ability to regenerate. This personal journey takes us on a walk alongside parasites, symbionts and decomposers offering ideas of both interconnectedness and collaboration. Driven by a vision of resistance, the encounters seek poss
Dambarey is a street kid, who in a dendrite induced trance, turns invincible to outfox Kathmandu with his gang of five. Little does he know that his altered mind is playing wicked tricks to lead him and his friends to a place of no return.
The catastrophe is tirelessly repeated in Hollywood cinema. The genre of the disaster movie hints at the collective psyche of the respective historical epochs. The perspective of a postmodern longing for moments of spectacular destruction, which briefly interrupts the dull monotony in late capitalis
Exploring the promise of brave new advances in psychopharmacology and neuroscience. Featuring interviews with the world's foremost researchers, writers, and pioneers in psychedelic psychotherapy — these soul healers and scientific investigators are using everything from ancient decoctions to L
An urgent story about the Wixarika People, one of the last living Pre-Hispanic cultures in Latin America, and their struggle with the Mexican government and transnational mining companies to preserve Wirikuta, their most sacred territory and the land where the peyote grows, the traditional medicine
Antidote focuses on indigenous healers and their ancestral relationship to the Amazon rainforest, its spirit world and curing traditions. A group of foreigners arrive looking to recover from a variety of traumas. Using song, ceremony and ayahuasca, the most potent and transformative medicine of the
They say that if you put your ear to the back of his neck, you can hear the Virgin talk.
In a recent study, volunteers were given psychedelic drugs and had their brains scanned in a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine. The scientists conducting the research wanted to gain a better understanding of consciousness and find out what the brain is actually doing when it experiences consc
Psychedelia takes viewers on a journey through the origins and resurgence of psychedelic research, exploring the profound, life-altering effects of these compounds in both the therapeutic setting and the world at large. Psychedelia is an American documentary film from Hard Rain Films, that has been
The acacia can be found all over the world, but these particular species - Mimosa Tenuiflora or Mimosa Nigra – bloom in the region identified in maps as the states of Paraíba, Pernambuco, and Rio Grande do Norte. Everything that grows in the Brazil's agreste and sertão regions mu
A hallucinatory journey into the Haitian carnival shot on 16mm. Created in collaboration with the director's students from the Ciné Institute in Jacmel, Haiti, and based on a poem by young Haitian poet Gabriel Jerry Wood.
en abîme . The images Barbara Doser produces plunge into their own abyss. And into ours. We experience an uncompromising precision in both: the conditions of the material´s recording/analysis and - not synchronous but very much simultaneous - lyric movement and something indescribable wh
Flor da Montanha is an address in the city of Nova Friburgo, located in the hinterlands of Rio de Janeiro state. It's a subdivision with houses, a temple, a church, a community. It is the songs from the Africas in Brazil, an Amazonian scent in southeastern Brazil. It is Umbanda and it is also Santo
This devilish horror art-doc elucidates the mysterious link between evil and the infamous Santa Ana Winds through a collection of visual allegories and testimonials from denizens of the deserts. The "Red Wind" originates inland and blows through the coastal Southern California. Legend has it that th
Rainer Kohlberger is a maximalist, ready to take things to the limit when it comes to visual, auditory, and ultimately also bodily experiences. What else can explain the reason why he's chosen the sun as his dialogue partner? As children we squinted our eyes, gazed at the horizon, and let the sun co
REM: the stage of sleep which invokes dreams. The film attempts to depict these hypnagogic visions, which are presented without narration. Fragments of the unconscious overtake and dismantle one another, in the process obliterating the dream from memory.
Over a day, Giulia Grossmann follows the Huichols, one of Mexico's most ancient Indian ethnic groups, in search of the peyote they use to reconnect with divinity. In the night, the bodies unwind around the fire. Under the effect of this hallucinogenic drug, the celebrants decide which sacrifice will
A young drifter's journey through Poland's 1990s rave scene goes from hallucinogenic to harrowing in this Day-Glo-drenched animated odyssey.
This animation is part of the "Taïga Maya" DVD tinyurl.com/qy8kfuz and artelligences.com/taiga-maya/?lang=en There is quite a saga behind it as it started, many years ago, with a sketch I made on a beautiful music by L'Arpeggiata vimeo.com/201462154 (more info on the whole process there) Thierr
A completely hand-made historical micro-epic about the final minutes in the life of Winnipeg's doomed Second World War hero, Andrew Mynarski (1916-1944). When his bomber jet is raked with enemy canon-fire over France, Mynarski unsuccessfully attempts to save the life of a trapped crew-mate before fa
VALE DO AMANHECER a film by Vincent Moon & Priscilla Telmon, Petites Planètes produced by Petites Planetes and Feever Films ▼ Documentary on the 'Valley of Dawn', a unique spiritual center near Brasília, mixing various beliefs and spiritual techniques in a very complex form of cult, to
About twenty human guinea pigs are about to be the subjects of an experiment. A dummy party where they only drink water. This water contains a homeopathic version of a new synthetic drug that would have the property of releasing hormones related to the love process.
"Turn, turn, turn" was a motto of psychedelic culture. This became "evolve - revolve - evolve" in Barbara Doser´s film, which has a psychotropic effect equal to those of hallucinatory experiments made 40 years ago. The point of departure chosen for it is minimal: In a one-minute black-and-whit
In 2018, in winter/spring, I had to have some eye surgeries realized. In the phases between the surgeries, the visual perceptions were inspiringly disturbed: distorted, blurred, sometimes only pinpoint sharp, and, occasionally, a wandering dot in the field of view ... In this visual aggravation, I p
Rainer Kohlberger´s eight-minute film keep that dream burning begins with extremely fine black-and-white particles that flutter across the screen. Coagulating into rough structures, they transform into a storm of jagged artifacts and steadily changing spots of light. With the introduction of t
Mycological is an audio piece which takes as its subject certain aspects of human encounters with fungi. Fungi were once thought of as kinds of plants but are now categorized as their own kingdom, which also includes yeast and moulds. Genetically more similar to animals than to plants, fungi nearly
The Sixth Sense : If two letters in the original German title of Dietmar Brehm´s new film were changed, it could be translated as Glances. The result would be coordinates of a mode of vision in which subject and object oscillate: A glance triggers flashes of lightening in the brain; synaptic a
A burnt-out American globetrotter stumbles upon a psychedelic adventure in Kathmandu.