Samantha Stella's 'Love In A Dying World' Final Chapters Revealed

Samantha Stella's experimental film 'Love In A Dying World', shot during a journey with musician Nero Kane through California's desert landscapes, is structured in 10 chapters based on Kane's album of the same name. The film has been presented at venues including the Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Los Angeles, Teatro della Tosse Genova, Museo Marca Catanzaro, Macro Asilo Roma, and Teatro Renzo Casali – Fabbrica Dell’Esperienza Milano. Future screenings include one in Bari in collaboration with semiotics professor Claudia Attimonelli. The final three chapters, featured here, are steeped in melancholy and decay. Chapter 8, 'Eleonor', is set at the Amargosa Opera House in Death Valley Junction, California, near the Nevada border and Las Vegas. Built in the 1960s by New York dancer and actress Marta Becket, the theater featured performances for a painted audience. Local lore tells of miners who drowned in a sudden flood nearby, and experts have reported ghostly presences. The chapter shows a dead hare along the protagonist's path. Chapter 9, 'So Sad', takes place between a motel on Route 66 in Barstow and Joshua Tree National Park, where the protagonist sleeps next to a photograph of a bride. Chapter 10, the instrumental finale, synthesizes the narrative with images mostly from Death Valley. The film runs 45 minutes, color, 2018.