UPDATE: SHOW CANCELLED DUE TO FLOODING
Sex! Drugs! Celebrities! Cults! Aliens! Kidnapping! Cheesecake!
The 1960s and 70s were a time for questioning traditional Western religions and exploring alternative forms of spirituality. It was a perfect breeding ground for all manner of gurus, prophets, cults and new religious movements. Don Como’s film, Aliens from Spaceship Earth, showing Sunday, November 20 at 6:00pm at Cinefamily at The Silent Movie Theatre, invites you to “take a wild and woolly magic carpet ride through the post-psychedelic alternative spirituality explosion of the ‘60s and ‘70s…”
Narrated by Donovan, who also provides the soundtrack, Como’s 1977 documentary focuses on controversial cosmic leaders such as Sai Baba (who conjures statues of deities out of sand), Elizabeth Clare Prophet (whose followers live in a compound called Camelot and chant for the protection of the CIA), and Father Yod (whose followers make a kick-ass cheesecake). The film includes rare period footage of thousands of white, middle class followers shedding their traditional values and performing amazing feats and rituals. And if I know my hippie religious ecstacy, I imagine we are in for some noodle dancing not seen since the end of the Grateful Dead.
In spite of its sensational subject, Aliens from Spaceship Earth is one of the few films that actually sought to counteract the media’s attempt to demonize spiritual seekers and to “provide potent insight into a ‘70s subculture still vastly misunderstood today.”
After the screening, Process Media’s Jodi Wille will be hosting a panel with the filmmaker Don Como and the film producer/Hare Krishna devotee David Shapiro, plus some special surprise guests -including a cult exit counselor!
Illustration provided by Process Media
