John Lilly And The Earth Coincidence Control Office

A film by Michael Almereyda, Courtney Stephens

An essay film about the mysteries of consciousness and communication channeled through neurophysiologist and “psychonaut” John C. Lilly, a daring experimenter with dolphins and psychedelics. Lilly’s motto — “My body is my laboratory” — carried him into realms of radical self-investigation, while his research also helped bring dolphins and whales into the collective dreamlife of the 20th century.

Director, Writer: Michael Almereyda, Courtney Stephens
Producers: Taylor Hess, Jesse Miller
Narrator: Chloë Sevigny

About the Filmmakers

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.

“One of the most consistently inventive, impossible-to-categorize directors of our time, Almereyda has shown a fascination with visionary characters across both his narrative and documentary films” —The Criterion Channel

“Almereyda has a boundless gift for finding new ways to tell old stories…His films include the vampire tale Nadja and several Shakespeare adaptations, including a superb Hamlet with Ethan Hawke.” —Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

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.