Baltic Cinema: John Lilly and the Earth Coincidence Control Office
Dirs. Michael Almereyda and Courtney Stephens
USA 2025 89’ | Digital video | In English
Baltic Cinema: John Lilly and the Earth Coincidence Control Office
Thu 9 July | 18:30
£6/£4* per person
Courtney Stephens and Michael Almereyeda’s endlessly fascinating film joins the depths of the ocean with the furthest reaches of the unconscious via the unlikely research of neurophysiologist and ‘psychonaut’ John C.Lilly.
Lilly sustained an extraordinary career through uniquely adventurous scientific research. The inventor of the isolation tank, he was a primary explorer in the study of dolphin communication and founded his own marine laboratory, pairing a young female researcher with a young male dolphin in a partially-flooded house. His 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.
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 from LSD to ketamine and beyond, leaving conventional science behind.
Spanning the 1950s to the 70s, Lilly’s enquiry was both shaped by and in turn influenced Cold War military science, the drug-infused counterculture of the 60s, and the environmental vanguard of the 70s. His experiments entered pop culture apocrypha, serving as the inspiration for two Hollywood films, The Day of the Dolphin and Altered States, and earned him the attention of equally exceptional contemporaries, including filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky.
John Lilly and the Earth Coincidence Control Office screens as part of Sea Season, a programme of films continuing the themes of Baltic’s exhibition For All At Last Return, which ends on 7 June.
Supported by Schmidt Ocean Institute, exhibition partner of For All At Last Return.
Doors open 18:00; Film starts 18:30. Pop-up cinema bar open from 18:00 for drinks.
Please note we cannot offer refunds on this event.
*Concessions: under 18s, unwaged & 65+
Baltic Cinema
Baltic Cinema is a year-round cinema programme at Baltic, lighting up our Level 1 Cinema with the best new and archive films. Bringing otherwise rarely-screened work to the North East, Baltic Cinema also expands our exhibitions, offering a chance to explore further some of the themes they raise.
Baltic Cinema has five strands:
Currents presents new work from across the world
Sources expands on our exhibitions
Selected shows films selected by our artists and partners
Quayside Kino is a monthly screening for families and children
News From Home offers films on and from the North East, for the people who live here
All regular screenings take place in our Level 1 Cinema.
Baltic Cinema is supported by Film Hub North with National Lottery funding on behalf of the BFI Film Audience Network.
