Martin Witz’s film pays tribute to one of the most influential figures of 20th-century America. Othmar Ammann was a reserved, recessive man, and it’s perhaps for that reason he’s not better known; he was a civil engineer who designed most of Manhattan’s bridges, helped establish innovations and safeguards in bridge building, and worked with the controversial urban developer Robert Moses to make New York City what it is today. -- From viff.org

By coincidence rather than by design, the Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann makes a sensational discovery in the spring of 1943. He realizes that he is dealing with a powerful molecule that will have an impact that reaches far beyond the scientific world. THE SUBSTANCE is an investigation into our troubled relationship with LSD, told from its beginnings to today.