Cannabis returns to focus for documentarian Rapha Erickson – 02/05/2023 – Cannabis Inc.

Prior to its release to the general public, the film Sofia’s Other World, a new documentary by Rapha Erichsen, will be shown at the Medical Cannabis Fair, at Expo Center Norte, next Thursday (4th), at 7 pm. The exhibition is open to guests who register at this link, until Wednesday at 6 pm.

The director returns to the theme of cannabis medicine, after nine years of launching Illegal: life does not wait, his first work on the subject. That was in 2014, when the cannabis medicine was restricted to a group of mothers, who fought for the lives of their children, often acting outside the law.

We are talking about children with rare diseases, who did not respond to conventional treatments, but only to substances derived from cannabis, mainly CBD (Cannabidiol), which was banned in the country. As a mother, she has no limits when it comes to the lives of her children, they found a way. Some resorted to trafficking, others planted, and there were still those who managed to travel abroad and bring the oil hidden in their suitcase. “At that time, it was very difficult to talk about marijuana. It was taboo”, says Erickson.

In another scenario, now legal, with the medicinal trade regulated by Anvisa (Health Surveillance Agency), the second documentary tells the story of Sofia Lagenbach, 13. The girl was born with a rare syndrome, which triggers seizures, contained only with CBD.

“The Illegal was the first phase of the fight, when we asked the State that we were no longer considered drug dealers”, says Sofia’s mother, lawyer Margarete Brito, founder of Apepi, an association of patients in Rio de Janeiro. To supply the patients with the oil, she has a farm of cannabis with laboratory, whose production is authorized by the Justice.

With a more poetic language than the first film, the documentary presents this mother’s struggle to guarantee her daughter’s treatment. Unable to import CBD oil, she decided to grow and produce it at home.

Margarete is the guiding thread of Erickson’s narrative to assemble a well-tailored cut of the sector’s national scene. Throughout the film, specialists from different areas related to the plant, such as sociologist Julita Lemgruber and neuroscientist Sidarta Ribeiro, are visited by her for a chat.

Next Sunday (8), the film premieres on the GNT channel. On the following day, there will be a special session open to the public, at Cívico (Rua Virgílio de Carvalho Pinto, 445, Pinheiros), in São Paulo, at 7 pm. The session will be followed by a debate organized by Folha de S.Paulo, with the director and guests, mediated by me. Those interested need to confirm presence at this link, until Sunday (9), at 14h.

Watch the trailer here.

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