Cult filmmaker, comic book author and master of tarot, Alejandro Jodorowsky traveled back to to his hometown of Tocopilla, Chile to conjure up his absurdist vision, The Dance of Reality, more than two decades after his previous film The Rainbow Thief. “I hope to show a picture made with soul—my soul,” says the influential director of the autobiographical movie excerpted here. Jodorowsky’s sprawling, avant-garde filmography spans almost 50 years and includes the infamous 1973 epic The Holy Mountain, which was part financed by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. His latest darkly comic tale revisits moments from his childhood—his father’s domestic abuse and his mother’s lifelong unfulfilled dream of being an opera singer—with a poeticism that is allied with weirder moments such as the dog fancy dress competition scene premiered in today’s clip. He cast three of his sons and his wife, the French painter Pascale Montandon-Jodorowsky, in prominent roles. “It was a psychological explosion,” says the 85-year-old provocateur, who now resides in Paris. “My son Brontis plays my father and Adan plays the romantic anarchist. Cristobal plays Theosopher, my master; every son dreams to be the master of his father. And my wife Pascale makes the costumes, giving color to a life that was grey from the beginning. The past can be changed and this is what is important.”

The Dance of Reality is in cinemas from May 23.