BAMPFA\u2019s Kate MacKay explains Psychedelia & Cinema, a mind-bending film series that redefines the cinematic trip as a powerful tool for liberation and self-discovery.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t By Charlotte Khadra<\/a>, Anne Brice<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t March 17, 2026\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n In a world of constant distraction, the cinema offers a rare, meditative doorway into other universes. That\u2019s according to Kate MacKay, a film curator at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) who has spent over a decade championing the power of experimental cinema to challenge our perception of reality.<\/p>\n In this 101 in 101 video<\/a>, which challenges UC Berkeley experts to explain the basics of their field in only 101 seconds, MacKay explains Psychedelia & Cinema<\/a>, a new film series organized with the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics that investigates how the physical properties of film \u2014 the flicker of a rhythmic montage or the raw grain of a 16mm emulsion \u2014 can actually shift a viewer\u2019s state of mind. From the counterculture grit of Roger Corman\u2019s The Trip to the transcendent Afrofuturist visions of Sun Ra\u2019s Space Is the Place, the series spans decades and continents to redefine the cinematic trip as a powerful tool for liberation and self-discovery.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n