A lot of filmmakers come to Docs for Sale in search of a sales agent but not all of them can boast the excess interest Maartje Nevejan (right) has received for her film Descending the Mountain, which opened November 11 in The Netherlands. The documentary makes the case for the widespread application of psychedelic drugs to treat illnesses such as depression, PTSD and anxiety.
“We didn’t really think about international distribution yet, but because of the psychedelic renaissance wave we are in, then suddenly all these countries come and call us or mail us that they want to have it,” Nevejan told Business Doc Europe, citing substantial from France, Italy, Scandinavia and the US. “And people are actually organizing cinemas now where it could be shown, but this is way too much for us because we have to send links, we’d have to do the technical support. So it’s a bit crazy. So that’s why we are here, to find an international distributor or sales company. An expert!”
The film premiered this Autumn at the Insight Conference in Berlin and played at the InScience – International Science Film Festival Nijmegen. “It’s word of mouth. People started talking about it, and there’s also our website. So people go to the website, they send links to other people. So it started to mushroom in its own way,” said fellow producer Annette Badenhorst (left), who reported intense sales interest in the doc. “I have spoken to seven [agents] and all of them want the film.”
The film is based upon a legal ground-breaking psychedelics double-blind experiment conducted on a mountain in Switzerland by a psychiatrist and a zen abbot, their goal to re-examine the nature of consciousness. In the film Nevejanvisualises, with the help of A.I. artists, ‘how to descend from the mountain of bliss, and integrate mysticism into regular life.’
Speaking to a online audience at the Holland Film Meeting in September Nevejan said: “Psychedelics have been around in human culture since before recorded human history. What does this mushroom know that we don’t? What does it do that we can’t. Psychedelics are all about connections. Indigenous communities have known that for centuries.”
The English/German-language feature doc is produced by Global Inside. The budget is €330,000. “For 15 years, I’ve traveled the globe documenting life in the outside world,” said Nevejan at HFM. “The last six years, however, I have turned my gaze inward and I’m very interested in filming the inner world. I worked before for the Dutch NPO and Al-Jazeera but now I’m really interested to work together with scientists and artists to find this new language for the inner world.”
“In Descending The Mountain I worked with artificial intelligence, artists, animators and sound engineers in order to find this language for, as they say, an ineffable mystical experience,” she added. “That was very challenging and very interesting for us because we wanted to leave the iconic visuals of the sixties, because then psychedelics stood for parties and freedom. Now in the psychedelic renaissance, it is more about science and healing, not only [for] ourselves, but also the planet.”
