Set Fire to the Stars News Updates

Based on true events, Elijah Wood stars as John Malcolm Brinnin, the New York academic who brought Dylan Thomas to America. Actor/co-writer Celyn Jones plays the volatile celebrity poet—tormented by anonymity, alcohol and the abyss—who scandalized the Manhattan literati of the Fifties and challenged Brinnin’s hero worship of his work. In the face of the Welsh poet’s wilder excesses in the Big Apple—angel, beast and madman—John has no choice but to hijack Dylan to a private retreat to get him ready for America. The days and nights that follow will change his life forever. Part literary biopic and—shot in cut-glass black-and-white—part love-letter to the American B-movies of the Forties and Fifties, Andy Goddard’s debut feature is both a character-driven chamber piece and a cautionary tale about the flytrap of meeting your heroes.

A period movie exploring the relationship between poets John Malcolm Brinnin and Dylan Thomas.