Film screening & Q&A with award winning filmmaker Maartje Nevejan about mushrooms and meditation: Descending the Mountain

What happens when you administer psilocybin to experienced zen meditators? A neuroscientist and a zen master carry out a double-blind experiment on a sphinxlike mountain in Switzerland. Their goal: to examine the nature of consciousness. 

Descending the Mountain

Feature Documentary Film, 78 minutes
Subtitels for Film Screening: English
Production: Switzerland/the Netherlands
World premiere: Fall 2021
Director: Maartje Nevejan
Starring: Vanja Palmers (Zen master) &
Franz Vollenweider (Psychiatrist and Neuroscientist)

Agenda
7:30 film screening
8:50 Q&A with Maartje Nevejan
9:15 stay for drinks & conversations

This film takes you on a journey of mystical revelations through magic mushrooms and meditations.

In ‘Descending the Mountain’ psychiatrist Franz Vollenweider and Zen master Vanja Palmers create a ground-breaking scientific experiment located on the majestic Mount Rigi in Switzerland.
The film shows if and how, when united, psilocybin and meditation might expand our understanding of the nature of consciousness.

Leaving the iconic visuals of the 60’s behind, ‘Descending the Mountain’ uses animation, sound, and A.I. to create a new visual language for the transcendent experience of oneness with nature.

“Descending the Mountain is exemplary for the current psychedelic renaissance. In the hallucinating setting of the Swiss mountains and the serenity of a monastery surrounded by nature, Maartje Nevejan takes us on an audio-visual journey through expanded consciousness. As in her previous work ‘Are You There?’ she uses various subtle techniques to document the enhanced reality of inner experiences. Visually surprising and with a mesmerizing sound track this film literally opens doors of perception akin to the effects of psychedelics.”

– Patricia Pisters
Prof Media and film studies University Amsterdam