REACH Washington is co-hosting this evening with the Port Townsend Psychedelic Society, the Kitsap Peninsula Psychedelic Society, and the Clallam County Psychedelic Society.

For nearly four decades, filmmaker Maxi Cohen has followed ayahuasca wherever it led, and turned those experiences into three feature films. She'll screen clips from all three and tell the stories behind them — a Santo Daime church trying to explain itself to skeptical governments, two combat veterans leaving pharmaceuticals behind, and Indigenous Amazonian elders whose knowledge sits at the front line of defending the forest itself.

Cohen's work has shown in theaters, festivals, and on television worldwide, and is held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the National Gallery of Canada. From Shock to Awe, which she executive produced, screened at a U.S. Congressional briefing.

This is a conversation about how these medicines have been understood, misunderstood, and defended across cultures and decades — and what that history asks of us now.

Registration: Zoom