Chris Neilan

Stellify Chris Neilan

In Stellify, stories of love, abuse, and the film industry weave and intertwine in fragments, like an Altman montage, or Lydia Davis flash that coalesces into a Jennifer Egan-style interlinked narrative. An actor's breakdown, instigated by an Elephant Man prosthetic, leads to a love affair with a Syrian screenwriter. As a teenage actress wends a painful route toward a kind of stardom, she connects with a British stuntman, seeking a new life and a new self in Hollywood. Moments of tenderness, disappointment, and neglect form around a Korean film festival. As these and other pieces develop, the storylines weave, creating a novel in fragments, and a constellation of the ways in which we love and hurt each other, set against the abusive superstructure of the film industry.