Directed by Martin Witz • Documentary • 2011 • 81 minutes
In 1943, at the Sandoz chemical-pharmaceutical laboratories in Basel, Switzerland, chemist Albert Hofmann, in search of a respiratory and circulatory stimulant, first synthesized LSD. Martin Witz's THE SUBSTANCE: ALBERT HOFMANN'S LSD is an informative and entertaining investigation into the history of a drug so potent that mere fractions of a milligram can alter a subject's perception of reality. Viewers learn how Hofmann's discovery became the subject of 1950's Cold War experiments by the American military and the CIA, who saw LSD as a potential weapon. Meanwhile, international psychiatrists and consciousness researchers tried to unlock the drug's medicinal possibilities, wondering whether it might be an effective tool for contemporary psychiatry or neuroscience. In the early 1960s, Hofmann's 'miracle drug' escaped from the lab. The psychedelic substance appealed to the counterculture, whose members saw LSD as fuel for social and political revolution. Could spiritual peace be achieved at the flick of a chemical switch? The notoriety and sense of possibility surrounding LSD persist to this day. Decades after it first began to appear on international anti-drug blacklists, doctors and researchers have resumed exploring potential medical and therapeutic applications for the drug. Chock-full of rare archival footage of LSD-defining celebrities from Timothy Leary to Jimi Hendrix, as well as interviews with principal historical witnesses-including scientists, psychiatrists, and Hofmann himself, interviewed just before his death - THE SUBSTANCE: ALBERT HOFMANN'S LSD follows the story of LSD on a fascinating historical, scientific and cinematic trip. 'Martin Witz's fascinating film traces the history of the drug, from its early tests, possible military applications and to its eventual...
Directed by Tatiana Huezo • Documentary • 2011 • 104 minutes
On the surface THE TINIEST PLACE is the story of Cinquera, a village literally wiped off the official map during El Salvador's 12-year civil war. But on a deeper level it is a story about the ability to rise, to rebuild and reinvent on...
Directed by Rosine Mbakam • Documentary • 2016 • 76 minutes
Rosine Mbakam left Cameroon at 27 to live in Belgium. Seven years later—having studied film and married a European—she returns to make what she calls a journey into darkness—to the village of her birth, and later to the capital city of ...
Directed by Heddy Honigmann • Documentary • 1999 • 108 minutes
THE UNDERGROUND ORCHESTRA is a glorious documentary profile of musicians who play on the sidewalks of Paris and in the Metro. Filmmaker Heddy Honigmann (METAL AND MELANCHOLY and O AMOR NATURAL), illuminates the lives and music of a r...