The Culturist Film Club x Jameel Arts Centre on July 4: John Lilly and the Earth Coincidence Control Office
Jameel’s Summer Cinema programme, in collaboration with The Culturist Film Club
Film 2 of 5:
The second film from this series is a documentary about John C. Lilly (1915–2001) and his unconventional research methods and experimentations into human and animal consciousness.
I first saw it at IFFR last year, and in my festival roundup I described it as a “thoughtful and insightful film about a specific history of American counterculture” and “Learning about John Lilly, a visionary seeking another realm and interspecies communication sounds wondrous, but it is from a long lost era. Today, there’s no room for scientific research and discovery that doesn’t lead to quick profits.”
I’m looking forward to watching it again and unpacking it with my guest speaker and audience.
More information below.
Free to attend, but pre-registration is required.
JOHN LILLY AND THE EARTH COINCIDENCE CONTROL OFFICE
Michael Almereyda, Courtney Stephens, 2025, 89 min
John Cunningham Lilly M.D. (1915-2001) sustained an extraordinary career through uniquely adventurous scientific research. His experimental projects were staged against the shifting backdrops of 1950s Cold War military science, the drug-infused counterculture of the 60s, and the environmental vanguard of the 70s.
Narrated by Chloë Sevigny, John Lilly and the Earth Coincidence Control Office tells the story of Lilly’s quest, as one historian put it, to “get his hands on the steering wheel of consciousness” — a project that relied increasingly on psychedelics, leaving conventional science behind. Lilly invented the isolation tank and was a primary explorer in the study of dolphin communication, founding his own lab in Miami and St. Thomas, pairing a young female researcher with a young male dolphin in a partially-flooded house. In addition to this experiment’s circulation in pop culture, Lilly served as the inspiration for two Hollywood movies, The Day of the Dolphin and Altered States. The film reflects the scope of Lilly’s interests, the evolution of his public persona, and his interactions with equally exceptional contemporaries, including filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky.
“John Lilly and the Earth Coincidence Control Office isn’t a biopic so much as a study of a few tumultuous decades in US history, and how ideas––even and especially the most absurd––can seep into culture.” — Leonardo Goi, The Film Stage
The screening will be followed by a discussion with playwright and screenwriter Rebecca Crookshank.
Date: July 4, 19:30-21:30
Venue: Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai (location map)
Free to attend, please register here.
Director’s Bio:
Michael Almereyda’s films range from narrative features and shorts to documentary portraits and diary films. Skinningrove (2013), centered on photographer Chris Killip, was awarded Best Non-Fiction Short Film at the Sundance Film Festival and Best Film at the Ann Arbor Film Festival. William Eggleston in the Real World (2005) and Paradise (2009) were nominated for Best Documentary Films at the IFP Gotham Awards. Almereyda’s work has premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, the Venice International Film Festival, NYFF, TIFF, Rotterdam, Berlin, Locarno, and Rome. He has received grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and Creative Capital, and his essays have appeared in The New York Times, Artforum, Bookforum, Film Comment, The Believer, and booklets for the Criterion Collection.
Courtney Stephens is a writer/director. Her non-fiction feature, Terra Femme, composed of amateur travel footage shot by women in the early 20th century, was a New York Times critic’s pick and has toured widely as a live performance. The American Sector (co-directed with Pacho Velez) explores the legacy of the Cold War on American self-understanding, following dozens of fragments of the Berlin Wall installed around the US. Invention, a hybrid fiction feature, premiered at Locarno in 2024, where it received a Pardo for Best Performance. Her films have been exhibited at MoMA, The National Gallery of Art, The Barbican, Istanbul Modern, Walker Art Center, Thailand Biennale, and film festivals including the Berlinale, Viennale, Thessaloniki, IDFA, SXSW, Hong Kong, and NYFF. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Fulbright Scholarship, and grants from California Humanities, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and the Foundation for Contemporary Art. In addition to co-curating the miniature cinema Veggie Cloud since 2014, she has organized film screenings for The Getty, Flaherty NYC, Human Resources, and Museum of the Moving Image. Her writing has appeared in BOMB, Film Comment, Cabinet, Filmmaker, and The New Inquiry.
Speaker’s Bio:
Rebecca Crookshank is a screenwriter, playwright and international artist with a unique story. Aged 17, she joined the Royal Air Force. Her lived experience informed her later writing of Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, an award-winning solo play which toured the UK, receiving its international premiere on 42nd Street, New York. Her autobiographical play explores sexual harassment, inequality and injustice in military institutions. The play was supported by Arts Council England, published by Oberon books, shortlisted for a Liberty Human Rights Arts Award and nominated for Best New Play, Best New Production, Best Director and Best Actress in the Broadway World Awards. Selected as one of the commissioned playwrights for the Old Vic 12, followed by two British Council artistic residencies in Vietnam, she is currently developing UK/Vietnam revenge thriller film ‘The Red River’ with BFI Vision Awardee Jude Goldrei at Lunar Lander Films, set in the UK/Hanoi and is a guest resident at Alserkal Avenue UAE.
Rebecca is a selected member of BAFTA Connect 2022-2025. Since being catapulted into the public eye, she is an activist for equality and human rights as seen on BBC's Victoria Derbyshire Show and Channel 4 News. She has featured and written for The Economist, The Telegraph,The Huffington Post, and The Guardian. https://www.rebeccacrookshank.com
Links to the rest of the screenings:
Jameel’s Summer Cinema 2026: in collaboration with The Culturist Film Club
July 18 — Afterlives
August 01 — Do You Love Me
August 15 — The Blazing Sun