Psychedelia & Cinema
March 1–May 10, 2026
Organized with the support of the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics, this kaleidoscopic array of movies explores expanded or enhanced consciousness, psychedelic experiences, and the means of getting there.
Read full description-
Jordan Belson: Allures, 1961
-
Apichatpong Weerasethakul: Memoria, 2021
-
Roger Corman: The Trip, 1967
-
Ken Russell: Altered States, 1980
-
Ciro Guerra: Embrace of the Serpent, 2015
-
John Coney: Space Is the Place, 1974
- Upcoming
Films - Past
Films - Past
Events
Past Films
John Lilly and the Earth Coincidence Control Office
Michael Almereyda, Courtney Stephens
United States, 2025Sunday, March 1 3:30 PMCourtney Stephens, Michael Pollan, and Celia Ford in ConversationView DetailsThis is a multifaceted portrait of John Lilly, the revolutionary scientist and psychonaut whose quest to understand the mysteries of the mind—via dolphins, isolation tanks, LSD, and more—is woven into the culture and counterculture of the twentieth century.
Altered States
Ken Russell
United States, 1980Sunday, March 1 7 PMIntroduced by Courtney StephensView DetailsA scientist tries to connect with the unadulterated, prehistoric root of human consciousness via psychotropic drugs and a tricked-out isolation tank. Preceded by Jerry Pantzer’s Primordium (1968).
The Trip
Roger Corman
United States, 1967New 35mm Archival Print
Thursday, March 5 7 PMIntroduced by Michael SilverView DetailsFrom a screenplay by Jack Nicholson, with psychedelic montages by Dennis Jakob, The Trip features Peter Fonda as a television commercial director who tries LSD to make sense of his life. New 35mm made by the Academy Film Archive with support from Roger Corman, Julie Corman and Jon Davison. With The Psychedelic Experience.
Embrace of the Serpent
Ciro Guerra
Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina, 2015Saturday, March 7 7 PMIntroduced by Dr. Sylvestre QuevedoView DetailsKaramakate, an Amazonian shaman and the last of his people, assists two scientists, forty years apart, in their quest to find the elusive psychedelic yakruna plant. “A lament for all the lost plants and peoples of the world” (Jessica Kiang, The Playlist).
Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome and Luminous Procuress
Saturday, March 14 3 PMIntroduced by Maria SilkView DetailsWith performances by the glamorous guests of a 1953 Hollywood “come as your madness” party, Kenneth Anger’s film is a trippy ritualistic bacchanal. With Steven Arnold’s delirious vision of consciousness unbounded by gender or desire, featuring The Cockettes.
2001: A Space Odyssey
Stanley Kubrick
United States, United Kingdom, 1968Thursday, March 19 7 PMView DetailsThe film 2001 employs a widescreen, epic format for metaphysical use. It was conceived less as a science fiction narrative than as an experience in space and time, re-creating the dimensions of outer space by taking us beyond deep focus into infinite focus. With Jordan Belson’s Allures.
Sun Ra: Do the Impossible
Christine Turner
United States, 2025Closed captioned
Saturday, March 21 4 PMIntroduced by Ayize Jama-EverettView DetailsChristine Turner’s portrait of an artist as a cultural astronaut, boldly going where no one has gone before or since, explores the lasting legacy of Sun Ra’s mind-blowing music and philosophy.
Space Is the Place
John Coney
United States, 1974Saturday, March 21 7 PMIntroduced by Ayize Jama-EverettView DetailsInspired by Sun Ra’s 1971 UC Berkeley course The Black Man in the Cosmosand filmed around the Bay Area, Space Is the Place “takes to heart Sun Ra’s cosmic philosophy of music as a liberating force” (Steve Seid).
The Holy Mountain
Alejandro Jodorowsky
Mexico, 1973Also screens on Sunday, May 10 (without an introduction).
Wednesday, March 25 7 PMIntroduced by Jen HolmbergView DetailsOne man’s trip toward enlightened consciousness, The Holy Mountain’s deeply sacrilegious and antimilitaristic imagery remains as beautiful and intriguing today as when it first scandalized audiences at the Cannes Film Festival in 1973. With Bruce Conner’s Looking for Mushrooms.
Grains of Perception
Saturday, March 28 4 PMNathaniel Dorsky in PersonView DetailsNathaniel Dorsky reveals a world alive with the organic deterioration of film itself, in outdated, unexposed, processed 16mm film stock, the essence of cinema in its before-image, preconceptual purity. Bruce Baillie explores cinema and consciousness in the episodic self-portrait Quick Billy.
A Scanner Darkly
Richard Linklater
United States, 2006Friday, April 3 7 PMIntroduced by Erik DavisView DetailsRichard Linklater’s woozy rotoscoped adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s novel is a cop story infused with metaphysical questions about addiction, the nature of the mind and the self, and their destruction, embedded in a corporate surveillance thriller. With Coffee (1977) by Dorothy Wiley.
Communicating Vessels
Sunday, April 5 1 PMAnnie MacDonell in PersonView DetailsAnnie MacDonell and Maïder Fortuné bring a feminist perspective to the consideration of consciousness-expanding practices through drugs and/or art, work, and life. With works by Lillian Schwartz, Ben Russell, and Gunvor Nelson.
Faya dayi
Jessica Beshir
Ethiopia, United States, Qatar, 2021A limited number of wheelchair accessible spaces may still be available for this screening. Please contact bampfa@berkeley.edu if you would like a ticket for a wheelchair accessible space.
Wednesday, April 8 7 PMJessica Beshir and shah noor hussein in ConversationView Details“A nonfiction work of sensory immersion that’s part anthropology, part poetry” (Hollywood Reporter), the stunning Faya dayi explores the khat trade that dominates rural Ethiopia, circling between youths with little hope and their elders, who are dependent on the dream state the leaf creates.
Memoria
Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Colombia, Mexico, France, UK, Thailand, Germany, China, Switzerland, 2021Thursday, May 7 7 PMView DetailsSet in Colombia and starring Tilda Swinton, Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s first feature film made outside of Thailand explores the blurred boundaries between the natural world and the spirit realm, and the way that collective traumas reemerge as memories and dreams.
The Holy Mountain
Alejandro Jodorowsky
Mexico, 1973Also screens on Wednesday, March 25 (with an introduction by Jen Holmberg).
Sunday, May 10 7 PMIntroduced by Maya AcharyaView DetailsOne man’s trip toward enlightened consciousness, The Holy Mountain’s deeply sacrilegious and antimilitaristic imagery remains as beautiful and intriguing today as when it first scandalized audiences at the Cannes Film Festival in 1973. With Bruce Conner’s Looking for Mushrooms.