Of Night and Light: The Story of Ibogaine (2024)

Of Night and Light tells the astounding unknown story of what might be the scientific discovery of our generation. Back in 1962, a teenage psychonaut in New York City named Howard Lotsof experimented with an obscure psychedelic from the root bark of a West African shrub and recognized its unique therapeutic potential. Together with his African-American wife Norma, a pair of outsider NYU film students, they dedicated their lives to convincing the scientific community and government agencies to research it, certain that it would be of great medicinal benefit, despite it sounding too good to be true—like the textbook definition of snake oil—and being written off as con artists.

Sixty years later, their dream is now materializing as clinics spawned from their original test sites have treated more than 100,000 people with opiate use disorder and now over 1,000 US Special Forces veterans, who have experienced dramatic relief from a spectrum of problems including traumatic brain injury, depression, anxiety, ptsd, addictions, and physical disabilities through the use of ibogaine. Now jaw-dropping new research, about to be published, is revealing that ibogaine is the most powerful therapeutic ever observed for the human central nervous system.

After a sneak peek at the Tribeca Film Festival, the film will be released later in 2024. It has not yet been reviewed and no trailer is yet available.

Press

“Lucy Walker’s film was a major step in humanizing people with addiction and mental illness, while celebrating the heroic efforts of Howard and Norma Lotsof.”
Forbes

Deadline piece on the Tribeca sneak peek