Masterclass by Courtney Stephens
Wednesday 25 February 2026
10:00—17:00 at Beursschouwburg (Brussels)
Tickets coming soon
How can non-fiction films account for the increasingly fantastical elements of present reality? How are genre conventions at play in, for example, the news we receive and the social media we ingest?
In a media landscape of slippery truths and authors, how can we go beyond the informational / educational model of documentary film, and enter into the collective dreamlife of the present? Filmmaker Courtney Stephens (Terra Femme, The American Sector, Invention, John Lilly and the Earth Coincidence Control Office) will share clips from her own and other films to think collectively about the instability of present visual and political reality, and how it might generate adaptive cinematic techniques, inviting other modes of displacement.
Experience is our guide, more than facts. Stephens will share footage and reflections from a work in progress, which deals with American fairy tales.
About Courtney Stephens
Courtney Stephens is the director of four feature films.The American Sector (with Pacho Velez) documents slabs of the Berlin Wall installed around the US. 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. John Lilly and the Earth Coincidence Control Office(with Michael Almereyda) explores the life of neuroscientist and psychedelics pioneer John C. Lilly, and Invention is a hybrid fiction film about an esoteric healing device. Both The American Sector and Invention were named among The New Yorker‘s best films of the year. Her work been exhibited at MoMA, The National Gallery of Art, The Barbican, Fondazione Prada, Jeu de Paume, ICA London, the Performa Biennial, The Academy Museum, and film festivals including the Berlinale, Rotterdam, Locarno, Viennale, New Directors/New Films, IDFA, Visions Du Réel, Hong Kong, and the New York Film Festival. Her work has been released theatrically in the US, UK, and France and she is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Fulbright Scholarship, and grants from the Sloan Foundation and the Foundation for Contemporary Art.
She has co-curated the miniature cinema Veggie Cloud since 2014, and organized film programs for The Getty, Museum of the Moving Image, Flaherty NYC, and Human Resources. Her writing has appeared in Film Comment, BOMB, Filmmaker, The New Inquiry, and Cabinet.
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