AFI Fest will close its 34th edition on Oct. 22 with the world premiere of Showtime’s Timothy Leary documentary “My Psychedelic Love Story,” directed by Errol Morris.
The film explores the dark side of the Leary saga and how his doomed relationship with his former partner Joanna Harcourt-Smith served as the final nail in the coffin for the counterculture of the 1960s and ’70s.
AFI Fest, which is going virtual this year without the usual glitzy Hollywood premieres at the TCL Chinese Theatre, announced last week that Rachel Brosnahan’s crime drama “I’m Your Woman” had been selected as its opening night title. The festival said Monday that it will host the world premieres of Kelly Oxford’s “Pink Skies Ahead” and Angel Kristi Williams’ “Really Love” in addition to special presentations of Florian Zeller’s “The Father,” Werner Herzog and Clive Oppenheimer’s “Fireball” and Mira Nair’s “A Suitable Boy.”
“Celebrating the diversity of great cinematic storytelling, our Special Presentations offer our audience the opportunity to experience new stories and new voices at this year’s AFI FEST,” said Michael Lumpkin, Director of AFI Festivals. ”From first-time directors and established masters to fiction and nonfiction to series, these outstanding films affirm the vitality and creativity of our resilient film community.”
“My Psychedelic Love Story” explores why Leary, a leading advocate of LSD in the 1960s, decided to become an informant in 1974 to shorten his prison sentence on a drug conviction. Morris and Harcourt-Smith reexamine this chaotic period of her life and explore the mystery of the Leary saga: his period of exile, reimprisonment and subsequent cooperation with the authorities. The film is inspired by Harcourt-Smith’s memoir, “Tripping the Bardo with Timothy Leary: My Psychedelic Love Story.”