Edge of Life: Film Screening & Yawanawá Q&A

A special evening exploring psychedelics, life, death and healing through film, conversation and song with the Yawanawá.

An incredibly special evening, welcoming members of the Yawanawá to Hastings, travelling all the way from their home in the Brazilian Amazon to share this evening with us.

Beginning with an intimate screening of Edge of Life, the evening takes us from the emerging world of psychedelic palliative care to the Brazilian Amazon. After the film, we’ll continue the conversation with Yawanawá guests who appear in it — hearing directly from them, opening the floor for questions, and finally coming together through traditional Yawanawá songs.

At the heart of the evening are some big, deeply human questions: What can psychedelics teach us about facing death? What does it mean to heal when a cure is no longer possible? And what might Western medicine learn from cultures where our relationship with death, medicine and the natural world is understood very differently?

About the Film

_ Edge of Life _ begins inside the emerging world of psychedelic palliative care, following doctors working with psilocybin and people approaching the end of life.

Their experiences open up questions that reach far beyond the clinic, about our fear of death, the meaning we make from it, and what it might mean to approach dying differently.

From there, the film travels to the Brazilian Amazon and an encounter with the Yawanawá, whose relationship with plants, healing, the natural world and death offers a very different perspective on some of these same questions.

**You can watch the trailer here.**

Our Yawanawá Guests

The Yawanawá are an Indigenous people of the Brazilian Amazon, whose ancestral territory lies in the forests of Acre. Their living tradition is rooted in a deep relationship with the forest, plants, ceremony, song and community, with knowledge carried and passed between generations through lived practice and oral teachings.

Plant knowledge and healing hold an important place within Yawanawá culture, alongside spiritual practices, traditional songs and ceremonies. These traditions connect individual and community life with the forest and the natural and spiritual worlds, and continue to be practised, protected and passed on today.

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Mew , Chief of Matrinchã Village, is a guardian of his people’s traditions and their knowledge of plants. Through his role within his community, he carries and shares teachings rooted in Yawanawá culture, the forest and generations of lived knowledge

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Yawa Tume is a dedicated student of both her ancestral Yawanawá traditions and biomedicine. She is passionate about building bridges between the knowledge of the forest and modern medical science, bringing these different ways of understanding health and healing into conversation.

Having the opportunity to welcome Mew and Yawa Tume to Hastings, and to hear directly from them rather than only encountering their perspectives through the film, is a rare and very special part of this evening.

The Evening

Film screening: _ Edge of Life _
A journey from psychedelic clinical research and end-of-life care to the living traditions of the Yawanawá in the Brazilian Amazon.

Yawanawá conversation + audience Q&A
A chance to go deeper into the questions raised by the film, hear directly from Mew and Yawa Tume, and open the conversation to the room.

Traditional Yawanawá songs
We’ll close the evening together with traditional songs shared by our Yawanawá guests.

An evening for anyone curious about psychedelics, death and dying, Yawanawá culture and knowledge, healing, consciousness and what it might mean to live differently when we remember that life is finite.

Venue

Saint Leonards Church
London Road, St Leonards-on-Sea

Hosted By

Freesia Basset

With a background in community arts, youth work and festival production, Freesia likes to bring people together in imaginative and authentic ways, especially those often overlooked or excluded from mainstream spaces.

She curates The Psychedelic Society’s gatherings in Hastings, celebrating the town’s creative spirit while opening new conversations about consciousness and community. Freesia also leads SisterWood, a nature-based programme for girls, and explores consciousness through Reiki and sound practice, weaving together art, nature and embodied awareness.

Psychedelics have been among her greatest teachers, informing her inquiry into connection with nature and self, and how we might honour the lineages that hold these understandings. She is studying for an MSc in Mind, Medicine & Culture: Psychedelics at the University of Exeter, examining how altered states of consciousness shape creativity, connection and collective understanding. She’s passionate about collaboration, open dialogue and shared learning.