Synopsis
The daring experimenter Dr. John C. Lilly dedicated his life to radical self-investigation and unlocking the mysteries of consciousness and communication. “My body is my laboratory” was the motto, and his research on the language of dolphins and whales – as well as psychedelics and sensory deprivation – assured his own cult status in 20th-century pop culture as the basis for Ken Russel’s Altered States and Mike Nichols’s The Day of the Dolphin. Directors Michael Almareyda and Courtney Stephens, along with narrator Chloë Sevigny, explore the life of a determined scientist and his experiments into the psychonautical unknown.
Born on 7 April 1959 in Overland Park, Kansas, USA, Michael Almereyda is an American film director, screenwriter, and film producer. He studied art history at Harvard University, but dropped out after three years to pursue filmmaking. His films include Hamlet (2000) and Experimenter (2015). His film William Eggleston in the Real World (2005) was nominated for a Gotham Award for Best Documentary from the Independent Filmmaker Project. In 2015 Almereyda received the Moving Image Creative Capital Award. Marjorie Prime (2017), his philosophical science-fiction film based on Jordan Harrison's play of the same name, was screened at Sundance Film Festival and won the Sloan Feature Film Prize.
Selected Filmography
A Hero of Our Time (1985), Twister (1989), Another Girl Another Planet (1992), Nadja (1994), The Rocking Horse Winner (1997), The Eternal (1998), Hamlet (2000), Happy Here and Now (2002), William Eggleston in the Real World (2005), Cymbeline (2014), Experimenter (2015), Marjorie Prime (2017), Escapes (2017), Tesla (2020), John Lilly and the Earth Coincidence Control Office (2025).
Courtney Stephens
Born in 1981, Courtney Stephens is an American director of formally inventive films, including The American Sector (2020), Terra Femme (2021) and Invention (2024). 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, Hong Kong and the New York Film Festival. She is the recipient of a Fulbright to India, a Guggenheim Fellowship and other honours. In 2023, she received the Grand Prize at Apricot Tree IDFF for the film The American Sector.
Filmography
White Gloves (2011), Sweet Prospects (2012), Ida:Western Exile (2017), The American Sector (co-directed with Pacho Velez, 2020), Terra Femme (2021), Lesser Choices (2022), Invention (2024), John Lilly and the Earth Coincidence Control Office (co-directed with Michael Almereyda, 2025).
