MAGIC MEDICINE follows three volunteers in the world’s first medical trial of psilocybin, the psychoactive ingredient in magic mushrooms, to treat depression. A deeply sensitive and absorbing portrait of the human cost of depression, and the inspirational people contributing to ground-breaking psychedelic research, and its potential to increase human flourishing.

In MAGIC MEDICINE filmmaker Monty Wates was given exclusive access to the first ever medical trial to give psilocybin (the psychoactive ingredient in magic mushrooms) to a group of volunteers suffering from clinical depression. His remarkable film follows the stories of the three volunteers and their families, and the ambitious staff running the ground-breaking trial, who are hoping this controversial treatment will have the power to transform millions of lives and ultimately be made freely available on the NHS.

Current statistics show that 1 in 10 of us will suffer with depression, however around 50% won’t respond to antidepressants, leading to the inevitable outcome that 1 in 6 of depressed people go on to kill themselves. A new approach is desperately needed.

Though the trial will throw them into unchartered territory, for the three volunteers whose depression has been diagnosed as untreatable, it feels like a last chance.

Through deeply moving personal testimony of the “trips” the patients go on, this intimate film is an absorbing portrait of the human cost of depression, and the inspirational people contributing to ground-breaking psychedelic research, and its potential to increase human flourishing.