Two-Day Festival To Showcase Indie Film and Music From The World of Psychedelia
The Psychedelic Film and Music Festival has announced the full program for its fifth annual event, with a lineup of music videos, documentaries, and science fiction and fantasy films. The festival will explore the altered states of consciousness and truth behind the vibrant and enduring psychedelic culture. Screenings will be held in-person on November 19th at the Producers Club Theaters in Midtown Manhattan, with a virtual encore on November 20th. Passes are available at https://www.psychedelicfilmandmusicfestival.com.
The mission of the festival is to raise awareness about the psychedelic experience through media and meditative practices, with an emphasis on exploring creativity and self-expression. “The festival offers an array of films, talks, and documentaries where kindred souls and good ideas collide,” said Daniel Abella, the founder and director of the festival. “Our goal is to educate and entertain attendees about how psychedelic practices are approached, which will allow for new pathways towards everyday life.” The event will showcase films that cinematically explore psychedelic experiences through abstract imagery, saturated colors, hyperreal dialogue and surrealistic landscapes. “Psychedelia comes in many shapes and forms,” said Abella. “Through film, we will show key ways to break open the mind, and capture the full context of which these experiences are framed.” In addition, music videos invoke various melodies and mantras that disorient and expand the consciousness of the listener. “Music is one of the oldest approaches to expanding consciousness,” said Abella. “It engages a part of the brain that thinks more holistically, and brings people together in a very emotional and rational way.”
Highlights of the live program include the full-length documentary Woodstock: A Snapshot in Time, which follows two filmmakers and their journey to the original site of the Woodstock festival in hopes of recapturing its magic. Other features include Trap, directed by Anthony Edward Curry, about a condemned man who dreams of the violent world that led him down a cursed path, and Daniel Christian Limmer’s Enter Mycel, about a girl who struggles to keep her family together following the death of her mother and confronts the existence of an emotion-based communication system enabled by a natural fungal parasite called “Mycel.” Further screenings include Isabella Hicks’ Lotería, about a man who faces off with Destiny and her mysterious “lotería” cards, and Danielle McCormick’s Huni, a study of the remote indigenous Huni Kuin tribe living in the Amazon rainforest. The festival will also screen Javier Prato’s Ancient Medicines, which takes viewers on a worldwide journey into the world of natural psychedelics from the Peruvian Amazon to the heart of Africa, and features footage of shaman-led ceremonies, and interviews with renowned neuroscientists, psychologists, and pharmacologists. In addition, the virtual lineup will feature A Tumba Abierta, an introspective fable about a musical and artistic movement, directed by Valentin Morato Ribera, Fernando Campillo Bravo, and Álvaro Ortega Ochoa de Ocariz.
By offering a wide range of psychedelic entertainment, the festival hopes to enlighten audiences’ perspective of their own identities. “People are waking up to the mechanized humdrum of everyday life,” said Abella. “Especially after the pandemic, many are seeking alternative practices to expand their awareness of the world, and this is how our festival will serve as a useful tool.”
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2022:
Producers Club Theaters (358 W 44th St, New York, NY 10036)
Block 1: Welcome to Wonderama
Time: 10:30am – 11:00am EST
Fight For What Is Right (2020)
Artist: Carlos KRL Mera
Run Time/Country: 4 min, USA
Synopsis: Hello I am KRL and I am giving you for consideration one of my songs that I am most proud about, the process of making Fight For What Is Right is a whole story that I am willing to tell you about.
Find It (2022)
Director: Joy Fillmore Greene
Run Time/Country: 4 min, USA
Synopsis: Can You Find It?
Sensitive Fate (2021)
Director: Oren Affias
Run Time/Country: 6 min, Israel
Synopsis: The expression of the struggles and rough path we take when we are blind to the dark within ourselves.
Bikers Dream (2022)
Director: Ken Glaser
Run Time/Country: 3 min, USA
Synopsis: In this whimsical homage to motorcycling, one of the director’s lifelong passions, this three minute animated short film began as a poem, and evolved into a unique audio/visual journey that ventures beyond the confines of earthbound pavemen.
Block 2: Your Surrealist Playground
Time: 11:00am – 1:00pm EST
Dada Noise 2 (2021)
Director: Christopher Rakas
Run Time/Country: 3 min, USA
Synopsis: An abstract short.
Meshes of the After (2022)
Director: Meg Case, Brad Porter
Run Time/Country: 10 min, USA
Synopsis: A retelling of Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), Maya Deren’s formative avant-garde film, a psycho-geographical journey through the shifting landscape of a woman’s home, mutating between experience, imagination,and causation in a recursively developing labyrinthine vision.
CIFIKA – Good Luck From Her (Lusine Remix, Live) (2022)
Director: Trent Moorman
Run Time/Country: 6 min, USA
Synopsis: Streaks of experimental electronics with hybrid Korean-English vocals and drums.
Complete (2022)
Director: Stephanie Leet
Run Time/Country: 3 min, USA
Out There (2021)
Director: Luka Mikkas
Run Time/Country: 30 min, Denmark
Synopsis: A young man finds himself in his own primitive self-created world, consisting of a tent, a well, a small garden and a scrap yard. He performs some rituals over the book Karma Sutra and cuts important notes, images out of the book as a form of worship and sacrifice to make a new life grow, all the while his subconscious takes more and more control and brings him beyond nature and far out in the universe.
Lavoro Macchinine (2021)
Director: Alexis Grey Hildre
Run Time/Country: 4 min, Canada
Synopsis: A collaboration between Alexis Grey Hildreth (moving image) and Ora Cogan (sound) that deconstructs the opening credits and reimagines the musical overture in the title sequence from the Italian period drama Il Gattopardo (1963).
A Randon Walk Through the Latent Space (2021)
Director: David Witzling
Run Time/Country: 6 min, USA
Synopsis: Two artificial intelligences compete to mingle fact with its statistical representation. Thinking machines will eat your future. In the end, all is well in the Disneyverse.
Lotería! (2020)
Director: Isabella Hicks
Run Time/Country: 12 min, USA/Mexico
Synopsis: Rafa is forced into the trial of his life when he awakens to find himself face to face with Destiny and her deck of lotería cards.
Photography and Rocketry (2005)
Director: Matthew Robert Macy
Run Time/Country: 6 min, USA
Synopsis: The eye is a miraculous instrument, forever tuned to the pulsating wavelengths of light but, the eye is hemmed in by horizons.
Forest Creatures (2021)
Director: Larissa Archer
Run Time/Country: 3 min, USA
Synopsis: A dance and character study film.
Smoking Mirror (2022)
Director: Zareh Tjeknavorian
Run Time/Country: 2 min, USA
Synopsis: An eye for an eye…An analog sleight of hand – all effects made in-camera. One minute / 16mm reversal / B&W / Silent – BYOSFX (bring your own sound effects).
Untitled Bartel (2022)
Director: Malte Bartels
Run Time/Country: 1 min, Germany
Synopsis: This film shows the physical and chemical destruction of the filmmaker’s portrait.
Block 3: Altered States
Time: 1:00pm – 3:00pm EST
Dharma in Everywave (2020)
Director: Lee Seong Wook
Run Time/Country: 6 min, Korea
Synopsis: Natural footage collected by excluding intentions as much as possible was recombined into the iconography of Mandala-Dharmachakra. When I empty my mind and look at the great sea, it seems that each of the countless waves has a sacred task (dharma). Small waves gather to form an infinite sea, and the infinite sea becomes small waves again.
Free Your Mind (2021)
Director: Kevin Trung Manh
Run Time/Country: 14 min, USA
Synopsis: An artist forced to engage in creating mass-produced paintings struggles to conform. Seeking help from a poster, he begins to delve into the philosophical nature of the inner self, meditation, and religion.Inspired by the writings of Thich Nhat Hanh, Free Your Mind is a tour into the mind of a tortured soul lost in the dystopia of a mass produced society.
PNW: Pure Natural Wonder (2022)
Director: Justin Saint Cyr
Run Time/Country: 3 min, USA
Synopsis: A visionary experience into the Pacific Northwest.
Ancient Medicines (2020)
Director: Javier Prato
Run Time/Country: 7 min, USA
Synopsis: Javier Prato takes the audience on a groundbreaking journey through the world of natural psychedelics —from the Peruvian Amazon to the heart of Africa— meeting shamans and partaking in their traditional ceremonies, interviewing distinguished neuroscientists, psychologists and pharmacologists who study their potential application in medicine.
Medusa’s Bakery (2021)
Director: Sheru Arora
Run Time/Country: 10 min, USA
Synopsis: Two young artists accidentally eat psychedelics taking them on a transformative journey while throwing a party.
Swamp Thing (2022)
Director: Dane Cree
Run Time/Country: 5 min, USA
Synopsis: Peace, love, and embrace is found in the dance between two entities merging in psychedelic connection. The soundtrack ‘Swamp Thang’ was recorded by the Minneapolis, MN based band Age of Curation as they meditated on humanity’s eventual and humbling engulfment by the earth.
Identity (2021)
Director: Oona Räyhäntausta
Run Time/Country: 3 min, Finland
Synopsis: Is anything really “ours,” anyway?
Grateful Dean (2021)
Director: Gabriel Joncas, Guillaume Dubois, Kenzo Suzuki
Run Time/Country: 11 min, Canada
Synopsis: This psychedelic portrait film follows Dean Robert, an eccentric self-sufficient mushroom cultivator who lives in an RV. It explores the adventurous and carefree van life, while also acknowledging that this reality can sometimes be deceptive.
Mayur (2015)
Director: Vibeke Sorensen
Run Time/Country: 8 min, Singapore
Synopsis: Mayur features complex images that evolve from threads and roots to vines and veins, forming intricate lace-like two and three dimensional structures, tiles, and living textiles in the luminous colors of the peacock.
Pick Me Up! (2021)
Director: Alex Cherney
Run Time/Country: 12 min, USA
Synopsis: Heartbroken over a recent break up, a young man gets more than what he bargains for when he looks to gain his confidence back with the help of a friend.
Endlessnessism (2021)
Director: Liam Clark
Run Time/Country: 12 min, Australia
Synopsis: A 16mm erotic trip about two friends who play a game where each rule prescribes them to act out their most violent and perverse private fantasies.
I Gets No Sleep (2021)
Director: NAJD FerencME
Run Time/Country: 14 min, USA
Synopsis: A music video director moonlights as talent during the pandemic. A 14 minute film told through song.
Melody (2021)
Director: Eric Harrison
Run Time/Country: 4 min, USA
Synopsis: An homage to “Spill the Wine” by Eric Burdon and War, “Open My Eyes” by Nazz, “I Heard Her Call My Name” by the Velvets and a few dozen other great psychedelic nuggets.
Block 4: Documentary Presentation
Time: 3:00pm – 5:00pm EST
Woodstock: A Snapshot in Time (2022)
Director: Nancy Cohen Koan
Run Time/Country: 79 min, USA
Synopsis: Two filmmakers, one an alumni of the original Woodstock Festival, the other, a younger Brit who only read about the sixties, plan a return to the original site in hopes of re- kindling the spirit of the time. They meet up with the philosophic and political icons of the era who encourage them to believe in a more just world. In the meantime, they fall into their own kooky relationship, perhaps an accident of working closely together or a necessity born out of a need for spiritual growth for the changing times.
Block 5: Psychedelic Sci-Fi
Time: 5:00pm – 7:00pm EST
House of the Unholy (2022)
Director: Daniel Merlot
Run Time/Country: 15 min, USA
Synopsis: A blood-thirsty Princess hunts down the last of the Indigo Elders tribe. She seeks a magical elixir in his heart that will grant her the powers to reign over the Kingdom for an Eternity.Shit doesn’t go as planned.
Catalyst Comet: The Movie (2021)
Director: Isaiah Marcotte, Danny Voyles
Run Time/Country: 6 min, USA
Synopsis: Inspired by the eccentric conspiracy theories of the Bavarian Illuminati, the Freemasons and the New World Order. Including the works of Carl Jung, Manly P. Hall, Rudolf Steiner and Robert Anton Wilson; Catalyst Comet the movie explores these themes through the lens of jest and (we hope) admirable parody.
227 (2022)
Director: Matthis Dor
Run Time/Country: 22 min, France
Synopsis: A young man wanders between the walls of his house, sinking into the darkest depths of his psychology. As memories of his past life wander around him, his thoughts escape into the void that surrounds him…
Sunday Drama (2022)
Director: Arturo Bastón, Dirty Sound Magnet
Run Time/Country: 6 min, Spain
Synopsis: A psychedelic fable about the creation of the universe and the beginning of life on earth, evolution, war, death… and maybe life again somewhere else. A music video for Dirty Sound Magnet.
Pandemic (2021)
Director: Albert Bayona
Run Time/Country: 7 min, Spain
Synopsis: A mashup of “Village of the Damned,” “Day of the Triffids,” and other classic sci-fi films.
Arise Robot Minds v1 (2022)
Director: Michael Bohacz
Run Time/Country: 6 min, USA
Synopsis: Tin Godz made this tune for the “Abductions with the Alter Boy” television show, the episode “Robot Taboo Module 2.”
Elatio (2021)
Director: Ioana Cherascu, Garrett Schroeder
Run Time/Country: 7 min, USA
Synopsis: A mysterious signal from outer space elicits equally mysterious reactions from its listeners, from total bliss to violent death. This film comprises three parts: a 50s-style newsreel, black-and-white moving photography, and a psychedelic finale.
The Interrrogation (2022)
Director: Marisa Cohen, Peter Issac Alexander
Run Time/Country: 6 min, USA
Synopsis: Set several decades in the future, The Interrogation is a cat and mouse game between a corporate media executive performing a “loyalty test,” and a savvy news director harboring a potentially game-changing secret.The Interrogation explores a mind-bending and often-psychedelic world where an all-powerful media company sets all the rules and demands religious like devotion from his employee
Dude (2021)
Director: Konstantin Rosshoff, Tokay Yotimo, Marco Jörger
Run Time/Country: 5 min, Switzerland
Synopsis: Sören and Melchior got lost in the woods. While Sören desperately looks for a way out, Melchior enjoys the fresh air and the drive into the blue. At a lonely gas station, the two get into a heated argument and Melchior takes off. Left on his own, Sören drives through the increasingly surreal forest which becomes denser and denser and finally invades his mind. Through the overwhelming trip, Sören finds back to his inner self.
Revelation of the Disembodied (2022)
Director: Andres Silva
Run Time/Country: 10 min, USA
Synopsis: Fragments of a collective post-human dream construct a world that straddles hyper-technological, mythological, and ecological dimensions.
Niteland (2021)
Director: Joey Halter
Run Time/Country: 11 min, USA
Synopsis: A man wanders through a dream city of night visiting the ghosts of the past.
A Dose of The Buzzer (2022)
Director: A Dose of The Buzzer
Run Time/Country: 9 min, USA
Synopsis: A government agent is on a mission in an undisclosed bunker in Russia. The agent waits for instructions on a shortwave radio.
SHC: Freak Accident (2021)
Director: Thomas Burke
Run Time/Country: 2 min, USA
Synopsis: A mysterious phenomena occurs during a video call, leading to a Texas resident’s death.
Block 6: A Psychedelic Awakening
Time: 7:00pm – 9:00pm EST
Howl (2022)
Director: Martin Del Carpio
Run Time/Country: 4 min, USA
Synopsis: Howl was written at a time when I needed to purge many of those emotions. You give your best to a position and hope it’ll be genuinely recognized where it matters. But time and time again, you’re let down by those who are in higher command. It’s a tricky line to walk, but it’s survival.
The Surrealistic Dream (2022)
Director: Logan Fry
Run Time/Country: 3 min, USA
Synopsis: Juxtapositions of distant realities as if in a dream. Reality is what you dream, life comes from within.
Argent Glass (2022)
Director: Katsuyuki Nakanishi
Run Time/Country: 4 min, Japan
Synopsis: In November 1967, in Honmoku, Yokohama, a guy is chasing his dream of becoming famous while performing live, but it is not coming true. One day, he breaks his cherished silver glass, and after gathering up the fragments, he drives off somewhere.
The Factory (2021)
Director: Gizmo Beardon
Run Time/Country: 4 min, UK
Synopsis: Life is short, in fact it’s just six lessons. In a world controlled by the Overseer, our hero enters the world as a new-born. Will they achieve enlightenment and become conscious enough to break free or will history repeat itself?
Between the Balance (2021)
Director: Nicole Kadar, Steven Speliotis
Run Time/Country: 4 min, USA
Synopsis: A choreography in 4D.
Space (2021)
Director: Jing Wang, Harvey Goldman
Run Time/Country: 4 min, USA
Synopsis: Between horror and ecstasy. Between memory and motivation. Between our wisdom and our ignorance. Between where you are and where you are not. The vacuous dark matter, primeval singularity, filled with infinite possibilities. Before the beginning and after the end. The vortex that is now.
Roses in the Night (2019)
Director: Pencho Kunchev
Run Time/Country: 10 min, Bulgaria
Synopsis: A story of a young girl in ancient Greece between ripening and the mystery of first love. Based upon “Les Chansons de Bilitis” by Pierre Louys (1875-1920).
Suite Southwest (2022)
Director: Ted Timreck
Run Time/Country: 14 min, USA
Synopsis: Mythical imagery found on stone surfaces of the American Southwest.
Huni (2022)
Director: Danielle McCormick
Run Time/Country: 30 min, Ireland
Synopsis: The Huni Kuin are a remote indigenous tribe living in the Amazon rainforest. The psychedelic brew Ayahuasca is a key part of their spirituality. Every Saturday night, they gather as a tribe and take it and go on a night long inner vision quest.
Our America (2021)
Director: Dean M Winkler, Donald S Butler
Run Time/Country: 4 min, USA
Synopsis: A short-form, non-narrative meditation on American 20th century industrial promises gone awry.
Adrienne’s Garden (2022)
Director: Richard Daniels
Run Time/Country: 5 min, USA
Synopsis: Adrienne’s Garden joins into one four short yoga-inspired movement videos featuring Adrienne Dornbusch meant to inspire and uplift mind, body and spirit.
Mostri (2021)
Director: Luca Di Bartolo
Run Time/Country: 10 min, Italy
Synopsis: The monsters for a dancer are the fatigue behind the performance, the sacrifices, the difficulty of arriving. A dancer who returns to the times when worries and fears have escorted him. But it’s just a journey into the depths of his thoughts. All of us, in the conquest of our freedom to be ourselves, live those feelings. All his memories came below a fiberglass dome.
Junior (2020)
Director: AJ Wilhelm
Run Time/Country: 12 min, USA
Synopsis: Gifted as a teenager, Jérôme “Junior” Simeon was recruited by top Haitian roots music group “Racine Mapou de Azor” and spent 20 years touring the world. When the lead singer of his band dies unexpectedly Junior’s high-profile career comes to a shocking halt and he suddenly faces an uncertain future for himself and his legacy.
All of Us Is One (2020)
Director: Xavier Zahra
Run Time/Country: 4 min, France
Synopsis: Let’s share the love like it’s 1969!
Block 7: Feature Presentation
Time: 9:00pm – 11:00pm EST
Trap (2021)
Director: Anthony Edward Curry
Run Time/Country: 96 min, USA
Synopsis: Facing life in prison, a hood dreams of the violent streets that forged his identity, but cursed his soul.
Block 8: Feature Presentation
Time: 11:00pm – 12:30am EST
Enter Mycel (2022)
Director: Daniel Christian Limmer
Run Time/Country: 74 min, Austria
Synopsis: After the death of her mother, thirteen-year-old Lena struggles to keep the family life together, between her newborn baby sister and her depressed father, who seeks relief from his loss through the manic belief of a timeless and worldwide emotion-based communication system enabled by a natural fungal parasite called the Mycel.
Best Psychedelic Scripts
Sugar Water
Writer: Noelani Mei Lee
The Floyd Side of the Moon
Writer: Vincent J Kianese
Festival Passes
Festival passes are available at https://www.psychedelicfilmandmusicfestival.com.
About The Psychedelic Film and Music Festival:
The Psychedelic Film and Music Festival explores the altered states of consciousness and psychedelia created by film, music, art and other forms of media. Founded in 2018, the event has showcased independent feature films, shorts, music videos and documentaries, and panels with distinguished guests, and pushes the boundaries of psychedelic and noetic realities to give audiences a unique and visceral experience.
Connect with Us:
Website: https://www.psychedelicfilmandmusicfestival.com
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/psychedelicfes1
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/psychedelicfilmfestival
