The Substance: Albert Hofmann's LSD
Monday, October 1 at 6:30 pm
Goethe-Institut San Francisco (limited seating)
In Person: Director Martin Witz
Special Screening
Documentary: In 1943, the year in which the first A-bomb was built, Albert Hofmann discovered LSD, a substance that was to become an A-bomb of the mind. Fractions of a milligram are enough to turn our framework of time and space upside down. The story of a drug - its discovery in the Basle chemistry lab, the first experiments by Albert Hofmann on himself, the 1950s experiments of the psychiatrists, the consciousness researchers, the artists. Could it actually be possible to find a path to the core of our human existence by means of a chemical? Spirituality at the flick of a switch? Do the enigmatic effects of this drug really help us to better understand the human soul? Could LSD be an instrument of contemporary psychiatry? Of modern brain research? —Martin Witz
Switzerland , Germany (2011), 35mm, 90 min., German, English, Czech with English subtitles
Director & Writer: Martin Witz
Subjects: Albert Hofmann, Stanislav Grof, Carolyn Garcia, Nick Sand, Martin A. Lee
US Distributor: Icarus Films
Community Copresenter: SF DocFest
Director Martin Witz was born in 1956 in Zurich, Switzerland. He studied German and Ethnology at the University of Zurich. Since 1995, he has worked as a screenwriter, film editor and independent director of documentary films.
