Join us for an evening of film, conversation, and community as we continue Jameel’s Summer Cinema, in collaboration with The Culturist Film Club, with a screening dedicated to a singular and boundary-defying scientific mind.

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

Trailer:

The screening will be followed by a discussion with playwright and screenwriter  Rebecca Crookshank. Audiences are invited to engage in collective viewing, stay for the conversation, and enjoy refreshments available throughout the evening.

Screenings are free to attend. Registration is required.

Curated by Hind Mezaina, founder of The Culturist Film Club.

Rebecca Crookshank  is a playwright, screenwriter, director, actor and producer. Her writing has become a prominent voice with audiences around the globe, such as the BBC and Channel 4 News. Rebecca has a unique story; at 17, she joined the Royal Air Force, this experience as a young airwoman working in radar and in a predominantly male environment informed her writing of Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, an award-winning solo play published by Bloomsbury, which premiered in Edinburgh, toured the UK, then received its international premiere on 42nd Street, New York. Shortlisted for a Liberty Human Rights Arts Award, four Broadway World nominations. Her Channel 4 News interview on military harassment received 5 million views and was selected as one of the three playwrights on attachment to the Old Vic on their Old Vic 12 programme. She is a BAFTA Connect inaugural member with multiple British Council artistic residencies in Vietnam and a guest residency at Alserkal Arts Foundation UAE resulting in an invitation for a Golden Talent Visa. Her body of work has been funded by the BBC, Sky TV, Arts Council England and is inspired by universal womanhood, cross-cultural friendship, and her global research which is rooted and sparked by her Scottish traveller showfolk heritage.  She recently founded her production company Mammal Haus, a writer-led company with a female lens focusing on untamed stories. Mammal Haus is building a swelling slate of multiple projects across the globe in theatre, film and television.  Rebecca is the founder and Off The Grid, an artist salon for Gulf-based artists hosting curated creative salons in a secret location. This year Rebecca was selected as member of the inaugural Amazon MGM UAE / NFTS / Dubai Film and Games Commission cohort with her original series ’SPIDERZ’. Currently she’s in post-production on a short film called Frog, and working on the move across Vietnam in development on a feature film with Lunar Lander films directed by Ham Tran and building a slate of collaborative projects with Paula McGann at Faf Films. Perpetually stretched between systems and across time-zones, Rebecca writes and makes between was planned and can’t be controlled by adapting to what actually needs to shift and makes it happen.

Hind Mezaina is an artist, film curator and writer from Dubai. Her interests lie in cinema, cities, visual culture, collective memory and archives. As an artist she works primarily in analogue photography and lately with moving image. She has been exhibited locally and internationally, including Art Dubai, Abu Dhabi Art, Sharjah Biennial 13: Tamawuj, Jameel Arts Centre, Nadežda Petrović Art Gallery, London Short Film Festival, Alternative Film/Video, and Safar Film Festival. As a film curator, she has programmed screenings for art institutions in the UAE including Louvre Abu Dhabi, NYUAD Art Gallery, Sharjah Art Foundation, The Africa Institute, and Jameel Arts Centre. She launched The Culturist Film Club in 2022 and hosts screenings at various venues in Dubai. The film club is an offshoot of her blog theculturist.com which she started in 2009 where you can find her writings.  www.hindmezaina.com 

 

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