August 21, 2018
From the event website:
The Aware Project hosts a series of monthly Psychedelic Awareness Salon events in Los Angeles and San Diego. We are creating a connected and educated community that feels passionately about balancing the conversation about psychedelics.
Get a glimpse behind the scenes of the hottest psychedelic film in production: Better Living Through Chemistry: The Work of Ann and Sasha Shulgin. Discover the Shulgin’s impact on culture at large with one of the film’s team members, Renee Reeser Zelnick.
Better Living Through Chemistry: The Work of Ann and Sasha Shulgin is a documentary film currently in production from Concept Film’s director Connie Littlefield ( Hofmann’s Potion, The Sunshine Makers ). The film focuses on the psychedelic godparents of MDMA, their chemical romance, and their significant contributions to psychedelic chemistry, therapy and research. Initial filming continued over the course of several psychedelic gatherings in California in 2001, 2002, and 2003; as well as a 2006 journey to Basel, Switzerland, for international conference celebrating the one hundredth birthday of Dr Albert Hofmann, the discoverer of LSD (and the subject of Connie’s film “Hofmann’s Potion”). Exclusive footage depicts Sasha at the peak of his intellectual power, and at the dawn of this psychedelic renaissance, which their work has brought about. Obtained for this documentary, are private interviews with Ann & Sasha, members of the Shulgin’s research groups, family, friends and other luminaries from the world of psychedelic research and culture.
Renee Reeser Zelnick, production designer, evangelist, and head cheerleader of Better Living Through Chemistry, is a Los Angeles-based creative professional serving a global clientele via multiple mediums: film, TV, video gaming, fashion, publishing and all manner of lifestyle brands. She holds a B.F.A. from Moore College of Art and Design and a Masters of Transpersonal Psychology from the University of Philosophical Research. Renee also serves as Creative Director for EndoCanna Health, a DNA testing company reducing risk for patients choosing plant based medicines. A three decade veteran of the psychedelic battlegrounds, her research, publishing, and advocacy in the realms of integration, harm reduction, the role of psycho-actives in societies, as well as her interest in human consciousness and the neuroscience of creativity have kept her boots on the ground. She is involved with numerous groups on an ongoing basis such as erowid.org, the Shulgin Archive, as well as the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, serving as a test subject in the MDMA Phase I Safety Study with Dr. Charles Grob.
For more information, visit the event website.
