Sammy-Gate

"Psychedelic history" is what Noel Lawrence calls this LSD-drenched version of the Watergate scandal. Think: a satanic Richard Nixon talking like Linda Blair in The Exorcist. In 1972, the break-in at the Democratic headquarters in Washington wasn't a simple Republican plot. This motley mix of fiction and altered archive images has a lead role for celebrity Sammy Davis Jr, who is sent to Vietnam by president Nixon to find out why so many American GIs are becoming heroin addicts. Davis uncovers a right-wing conspiracy set up by American billionaire Howard Hughes, who is importing vast quantities of heroin into America to get the black inner-city youth addicted, with the aim of suppressing the political activism that was arising in the late 1960s. Why make "a psychedelic trip into the 1970s polyester heart of darkness"? Because this allows you to uncover hidden truths, Lawrence says, taking his lead from the Surrealists of the early twentieth century. (International Film Festival Rotterdam)