“Jonas Mekas’s films celebrate life. They rise up against the world’s overwhelming commercialism, attempting instead to revive the pleasures of friendship, a first snowfall or the return of Spring. Mekas’s genius stems from his generously including the viewer in his vision of the world, allowing us to (re)discover, in a simple image, the incredible force and necessity of poetry.” – Yann Beauvais

Avant-garde filmmakers have long explored the potential of cinema to afford a visionary experience, exploring the affinities of film with trance, ritual, dream and memory, testing the play of light on the depths of the subconscious. Curators Kathryn Siegel and Sophia Satchell-Baeza’s programme Sisters of the Extreme brings together a series of films by women from the 1960s to the present day, concentrating on work that shares an occult sensibility and a concern with film’s potential to render heightened mental states, from the meditative to the ecstatic.