Dir: Michael Almereyda & Courtney Stephens
USA – 2025 – 89’
This new documentary is about neuroscientist John C Lilly and his pioneering work that led to startling and far-reaching discoveries despite the controversial nature of his methodology.
Director Courtney Stephens, probably best known for her recent award-winning drama Invention once again returns to her fact-based roots with fellow documentarian Michael Almereyda with this essayistic study of a time when America knew no bounds when it came to the realms of scientific experimentation.
The two filmmakers specialise in films that focus of the world of scientific experimentation and together they have mined the archives to cobble together photos and audio interviews, narrated by Chloë Sevigny, to show how John C Lilly was just one of a group of ground-breaking neuroscientists whose intrepid vision allowed them to go beyond the pale in the fields of psychology, ethnology, psychoanalysis, animal studies and psychedelic experimentation.
Lilly’s studies into animal language and awareness are particularly particularly interesting. Lilly embraced mysticism in an effort to go beyond the realms of hard facts and figures. NASA funded him to experiment with dolphins and LSD. Nowadays these studies are being undertaken again with dogs and other mammals who all have powers of communication, we just have to learn how to tune into their wavelengths to discover more, possibly by blending science with our own sensitivity and imagination. An exhilarating documentary. @MeredithTaylor
ROTTERDAM INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL | February 3 2025