Written and Directed by AL and AL
Megan Taylor as Stella & Diana
Al Taylor as Papa Razi
Gladys Taylor as Grandma Binah
Al Holmes as Priest & Preacher & Scallies & Chauffeur
Sound by AL and AL
Produced by AL and AL

Growing up inside the spectacle of perfect illusions, AL and AL's 8-and-a-half-year-old niece has featured in over 80 modelling pictures. Interstellar Stella maps out a journey through her pictures in order to explore what it is to grow up living and working on both sides of the mediated glass. Looking through the mirror of technology, AL and AL stage a parallax narcissus and trace the origins of Paparrazi by appropriating a sequence from Fellini's La Dolce Vita, which is where the profession of celebrity photography was first given a name. AL and AL's niece was born in 1997, the year Princess Diana was killed in the Place d'Alma underpass in Paris. This event marks another point in the story of Paparrazi and its relationshop with the most photographed woman in the world. Interstellar Stella weaves together these curious associations in order to discover the secret project of photography.

'Interstellar Stella focuses on the redemptive child, a saviour trailing clouds of glory to heal adults wounds and purify our corruption. Child stars since Mary Pickford and Judy Garland have embodied this promise. AL and AL, inspired by Megan's career as a model created a fable in which she does not only convey the desires of others (commercial, aspirational) but acts in her own right. Repossessing herself in the dream space of the film involves the child excercising authority over her images - a squad of image breakers dressed like special agents serve her in the film. Interstellar Stella explodes the love of images and submission to their powers. It is a film in the iconoclastic tradition, demanding that the viewer grasp that the pictures it makes are figments and act on us in bad faith. So AL and AL are operating by contradiction. They confect an illusion on the screen to show up the facticity, unreliabilty, and false promises of our society of the spectacle.' Marina Warner

13 minutes HD

Commissioned by animate! through Finetake productions by Arts Council England and Channel Four

Copyright AL Holmes & AL Taylor 2006