Tag Archives: doctor

Magic Medicine

Can magic mushrooms cure depression?

Over two years we follow the first ever medical trial of psilocybin (the psychoactive ingredient in magic mushrooms) being used to treat a group of volunteers suffering from clinical depression.

This remarkable film follows three volunteers and their families, and the ambitious staff running the trial, who are hoping this controversial treatment will have the power to transform millions of lives.

With deeply moving footage of the ‘trips’ the patients go on, as well as interviews providing scientific and political context, this intimate film is an absorbing portrait of the human cost of depression, and the inspirational people contributing to groundbreaking psychedelic research.

 

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“Monty Wates’s documentary shows the work of Dr Robin Carhart-Harris at Imperial College London: after years of bureaucratic wrangling, he got permission to conduct research into the possibility that psilosybin – the psychoactive ingredient of magic mushrooms – could be used to treat depression. Is society’s taboo disapproval needlessly holding back our understanding of this issue?

We see three long-time sufferers of depression, sensitively interviewed about their lives… They are given a low, introductory dose of shroom-essence at the first session, and at the second the amount is stepped up. The results are startling”

Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

 

Ayahuasca: Expansion of Consciousness

Ayhuasca: Expansion of Consciousness, tells the story of Ayahuasca, from its emergence in the Amazonian Forest, to its popularity with the Santo Daime religion, and on to its arrival in urban centres. 

Combining scientific, religious and anthropological perspectives on the use of Ayahuasca in modern society, and in parallel with the director Fausto Noro’s own healing process, Ayhuasca: Expansion of Consciousness provides for the first time, a holistic, yet balanced view of this controversial subject.

Fatal Flaws: Legalising Assisted Death

Should we be giving doctors the right to end the lives of others by euthanasia or assisted suicide?

Fatal Flaws: Legalising Assisted Death is a thought-provoking journey through Europe and North America to find answers to this question.

Some 20 years after these laws were introduced, even
some of the most loyal supporters of assisted dying
are questioning where these laws are taking us.

The grandfather of euthanasia in the Netherlands, Dr. Boudewijn Chabot speaks of a ‘worrisome culture shift’ and that euthanasia is ‘getting out of hand’ – especially as it relates to patients with psychiatric issues.

The cost of ongoing treatment is putting pressure on an already fraught decision making process, and the many are questioning the motives of those tasked with making the decisions.

Meanwhile, the suicidal can simply ‘shop around’ until they find the decision they are looking for, or more worryingly – others can do the same for those they are tasked with caring for.

With powerful testimonies and expert opinion from both sides of the issue, Fatal Flaws: Legalising Assisted Death uncovers how these highly disputed laws affect society over time.

The God Cells: A Fetal Stem Cell Journey

Stem Cell research and therapy have been growing at a rapid rate over the past fifteen years. Scientific advances coupled with consumer demand have proven that stem cell therapy is the wave of the future, and is poised to change the face of medicine.

The only hurdles have been religious and regulatory roadblocks slowing down the approval process for fetal stem cell therapy, arguably the most contested and controversial form of stem cell therapy to date, due to them being harvested from abortions.

The God Cells takes the audience on a journey with those who seek the life changing fetal stem cell therapy abroad, while avoiding the seemingly insurmountable roadblocks at home.

“The demand is real, patients with current unmet medical needs are desperate and require this therapy, but the current regulatory and industry hurdles are making it near impossible for us to do our job and get these important stem cell therapies to those people in need. Because of this, many scientific organizations are taking their technology abroad to appease patient demand, because they feel the current regulatory hurdles are insurmountable.”

Randal Mills, PhD, President and CEO for California Institute For Regenerative Medicine

Burzynski: Cancer Cure Cover Up

Burzynski: The Cancer Cure Cover-up is the story of a pioneering biochemist who discovered a unique and proprietary method of successfully treating most cancers. This documentary takes the audience on a near 50-year journey both Dr. Burzynski and his patients have been enduring in order to obtain FDA-approved clinical trials of Antineoplastons. Defying the face of skepticism, legal attacks from state and federal agencies, and a powerful propaganda campaign to stop Burzynski – this doctor and his patients are still going strong.

Due to the continued failed efforts of state and federal agencies in their attempts to stop Burzynski from continuing to treat patients and expand his research, special interest groups have since launched a relentless propaganda campaign against Dr. Burzynski, and his supporters and patients, in hopes  that this game-changing innovation never reach the open market.

The primary reason that the cancer industry and its regulatory agencies fear the approval of Antineoplastons is purely economical.

If Antineoplastons were FDA-approved for just one cancer type this would mean that anyone of any age diagnosed with any type of cancer could legally insist their oncologist provide them with Antineoplastons “off-label”.   Given the gentle and nontoxic nature of these medications, most people would begin to opt for Antineoplastons as a first line of defense against their cancer instead of first choosing life-threatening yet profitable chemotherapy and radiation.

Burzynski: The Cancer Cure Cover-up investigates this hidden cancer treatment and the decades of failed lawsuits the US government and FDA have pursued in order to try to silence him.

Beautiful Faces

Beautiful Faces offers a compelling look at one of the world’s most remarkable hospitals, the disfigured young patients to whom it offers new lives, and the team of surgeons, physicians, and medical professionals who believe it’s the best place in the world to practice their unique, life-transforming craft.

You’ll come away convinced that health-care can be affordable, humane, and excellent, and that every one of us deserves a face with which we can bravely meet the world.

Hospital General Gea Gonzalez, located in Mexico City’s frenetic Tlalpan district, is surrounded by a high metal-barred fence, its entrances guarded by policemen carrying automatic weapons. On any day, literally thousands of impoverished Mexicans wait patiently for services, often for many hours, yet the hospital’s plastic and reconstructive surgery unit.

It is a hospital that ably demonstrates that even the very poor can receive excellent medical care at costs that don’t bankrupt health-care systems and that everyone can be offered the basic human right of a normal face.

Beautiful Faces interweaves the stories of patients and their families who come to the reconstructive plastic surgery unit at Hospital Gea Gonzalez seeking physical transformations that will renew their own and their loved ones lives with the personal stories of the enormously talented medical professionals whose work is both their passion and their gift to humankind.

The film chronicles the remarkable community of caregivers and care-receivers who come together on the hospital’s fascinating fourth floor, and who profoundly influence each others lives. From Dr. Fernando Ortiz Monasterio, the beloved patriarch whose demands for excellence from his subordinates remain exacting, to four-year-old Sebastián Castillo, whose irrepressible enthusiasm for life helps him cope remarkably with the challenges of Crouzon’s syndrome, Beautiful Faces is a mosaic of stories–the richly visual tales of people who meet in a singular place and who collectively understand that in valuing individual lives and striving to make them better, we value all of humanity.

Beautiful Faces ultimately demonstrates that, in many ways, the distinction between patients and caregivers is only an illusory one, and that much more than cutting, sawing, and sewing, the essential task of the hospital is the freeing of the human spirit. It is work that allows doctors and patients alike to look comfortably in the mirror and understand that they are vitally important members of the human family.

Death of a Cemetery

Manila North Cemetery in the Philippines is a place of rest for 3000 people, all of whom are alive.

When rich families first erected mausoleums for their dead in the 1800s, they needed caretakers to maintain them and guard any valuables buried within. In exchange for their work, the caretakers were allowed to live inside the mausoleums, and a cemetery community was born.

Gravekeepers grow gardens around tombs; chefs cook up hearty fare in pop-up restaurants alongside crypts; and children play basketball in between school and funerals.

Manila North Cemetery has become a home to those without a home. But the graveyard is not always peaceful. One caretaker must face the task of burying his own relative in the cemetery, and another – only 13 years old – must undergo an exorcism lest forever be possessed by the spirits he disturbed.

Yet in a place where exhumations, ghosts, and witch doctors are part of daily routine, the biggest dangers residents face are universal to the human experience.

Cult Witness

At the age of 19 Samuel Stefan, consumed by crisis, was drawn into a cult. It would be 10 years before he was able to escape.

Using a technique called ‘love-bombing’ cults prey on the vulnerable, recruiting new members with love and warmth. After a period of brain-washing, members are forbidden to leave, enslaved through psychological control, and in Samuel’s case, even violence. He was finally able to escape in the dead of night, persued by other members and seek help.

Cult Witness is an intelligent exploration of how cults attract and manipulate their followers, sharing the disturbing firsthand experiences of Cult Witness director Samuel Stefan and six others who have freed themselves from cults: Jill Mytton (The Exclusive Brethren), Jim Bergin and Judy Garvey (The Gentle Wind Project), Lea Saskia Laasner (The Janus Project), and Celeste Jones and Amoreena Winkler (The Children of God).

Analytical insights into the cult experience are provided by leadership expert Betty Sue Flowers; Benjamin Zablocki, chair of the Department of Sociology at Rutgers University; UCLA Professor Emeritus Bertram Raven, an expert on interpersonal influence and social power relationships; psychotherapist Miguel Perlado, who specializes in cult-related problems; and Urs Eschmann, a specialist in legal issues involving cults.

Cult Witness unravels the hidden world of cults; the hold they have on their victims, the reasons people form and fall prey to them and what takes place within..

Facing the Fat

Kenny Saylors, after years of being healthy and athletic, became severely overweight and after trying various diets decided to do something drastic about it. With the support of his Doctor, he decided to stop eating for 55 days, drinking only water.

Facing the Fat documents his journey, from the realisation that he had a physical and mental addiction to the chemicals in junk food, to the detox and repair that his body goes through during this record-breaking fast. It also looks at the wider implications of over-eating for the individual, society and the world at large.

Obesity has become one of the most overwhelming diseases in modern society costing American taxpayers $99 billion every year, while the number of overweight people has surpassed the number of people suffering from malnutrition by 200 million.

Facing the Fat presents an entertaining and inspiring challenge but also makes the serious point, that obesity is not just a personal struggle, but one that has far reaching implications for us all.