Ciao | |
---|---|
Directed by | Yen Tan |
Written by | Yen Tan Alessandro Calza |
Produced by | Jim McMahon |
Starring | Adam Neal Smith Alessandro Calza Charles W. Blaum Ethel Lung |
Cinematography | Michael Victor Roy |
Edited by | David Patrick Lowery |
Music by | Glen Walsh |
Distributed by | Regent Releasing |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 87 minutes |
Country | United States |
Languages | English, Italian |
Ciao is a 2008 gay independent film directed and co-written by Yen Tan and starring Adam Neal Smith, Alessandro Calza, Charles W. Blaum and Ethel Lung.
With the slogan "If you could go back... what would you say to the one you loved", Ciao (meaning both hello and goodbye in Italian) tells the story of two men who form an unlikely bond when a mutual friend named Mark (played by Charles W. Blaum) dies unexpectedly in a car crash in Dallas
Mark's best friend Jeff (Adam Neal Smith) is left with the task of going through Mark's personal effects and informing relatives and friends of his death. While going through Mark's e-mails to let people know about his passing, Jeff discovers that Mark was corresponding with an Italian man named Andrea (Alessandro Calza), who had already planned a trip to fly to Dallas to visit Mark for the first time without knowing he had actually died.
Jeff invites Andrea to come to Texas anyway and stay with him for two days at his place. Ciao portrays these two days where the two bereaved friends one from Dallas and the other from Italy meet and talk mostly about Mark and the impact he had on both of them in a close, personal and frank manner. Through these intimate conversations, the two men form a rapport that grows, and they are soon drawn together both by their connection with the deceased Mark, and by a growing intimacy with each other. Andrea has to leave at the end of his two-day stay, but invites Jeff to Italy for a visit at some later date.
Ciao was made on a very small budget and was co-written by Yen Tan and actor Alessandro Calza. [1] The film was produced by Jim McMahon, co-produced and edited by David Patrick Lowery, and co-produced by James M. Johnston, who also served as the 1st assistant director.
Main musical theme of the film is "Five Times a Minute" sung by Charles W. Blaum (who plays the role of the dead Mark) and Adam Neal Smith (who plays the role of Jeff). The song was written by Curtis Glenn Heath. It is shown when Andrea (played by Alessandro Calza) introduces a video he had received from Mark where he professes his love and regards for both Andrea and Jeff.
The film received mixed reviews. Ruthe Stein from the San Francisco Chronicle praised the acting, but like some other reviewers criticised the "snails pace" of the movie's story. [2] AfterElton named Ciao "the best gay movie I've seen this year" [3] and the Los Angeles Times called it "a revelation; a minimalist work of maximum effect".
The film won the Jury Prize / Best Feature Film at the Philadelphia International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, the Queer Lion at Venice Film Festival, was given honorable mention at the Dallas International Film Festival, and was part of the Official Selection for Outline Framefest Newline. [4]
Trick is a 1999 American gay-themed romantic comedy film directed by Jim Fall and starring Christian Campbell, John Paul Pitoc, Miss Coco Peru, and Tori Spelling. Independently produced by Eric d'Arbeloff, Ross Katz, and Fall, the film was written by Jason Schafer. Trick premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 1999 and was later released theatrically by Fine Line Features that July. The film grossed $2 million at the United States box office, which was seen by Fine Line Features as "credible business".
I Am Not What You Want is a romance movie produced by Kit Hung in Hong Kong in 2001. This movie is about 48 minutes.
Mambo Italiano is a 2003 Canadian comedy-drama film directed by Émile Gaudreault. The screenplay was written by Gaudreault and Steve Galluccio, based on Galluccio's theatrical play by the same name. Both the play and the film are based on Galluccio's own life and experiences.
The Italian is a 2005 Russian drama film directed by Andrei Kravchuk. The screenplay by Andrei Romanov, inspired by a true story, focuses on a young boy's determined search for his Mother. The film won the Grand Prix of the Deutsches Kinderhilfswerk from the International Jury at the 55th Berlin International Film Festival, and a Special Mention from their Children's Jury and was also selected as the Russian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 78th Academy Awards, but it didn't make the final shortlist. It received generally positive reviews from critics.
Chad Allen is an American retired actor and psychologist. Beginning his career at the age of seven, Allen is a three-time Young Artist Award winner and GLAAD Media Award honoree. He was a teen idol during the late 1980s as David Witherspoon on the NBC family drama Our House and as Zach Nichols on the NBC sitcom My Two Dads before transitioning to an adult career as Matthew Cooper on the CBS western drama Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman. He announced his retirement from acting in April 2015.
Almost Normal is a 2005 comedy-drama film directed by Marc Moody and starring J. Andrew Keitch, Tim Hammer, and Joan Lauckner.
And the Band Played On is a 1993 American television film docudrama directed by Roger Spottiswoode. The teleplay by Arnold Schulman is based on the best-selling 1987 non-fiction book And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic by Randy Shilts, and is noteworthy for featuring both a vast historical scope, as well as an exceptionally sprawling cast.
The Big Gay Musical is a 2009 gay-themed musical-comedy film written by Fred M. Caruso and co-directed by Caruso and Casper Andreas. The film follows a brief period in the lives of two young actors, one who is openly gay, the other closeted to his parents. The openly gay actor struggles with whether he should be sexually promiscuous or seek a life partner, while the closeted one wonders if he should come out to his conservative, religious parents.
Gnomeo & Juliet is a 2011 computer-animated romantic comedy film directed by Kelly Asbury from a screenplay by Rob Sprackling and John Smith. It is loosely based on the play Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare and features the voices of James McAvoy, Emily Blunt, Michael Caine, Jason Statham, Maggie Smith, Ashley Jensen, Stephen Merchant, Matt Lucas, Jim Cummings, Julie Walters, Richard Wilson, Patrick Stewart, and Ozzy Osbourne. The story follows Gnomeo and Juliet, a pair of garden gnomes who fall in love, but due to the feud between their respective families, they must find a way to keep their blossoming romance a secret.
Happy Birthday is an American 2002 film directed by Yen Tan and starring Benjamin Patrick, Michelle E. Michael and John Frazier. It is Tan's debut long feature film.
Yen Tan is a Malaysian-born American independent film producer and director.
Adam Neal Smith is a Dallas, Texas-born and Los Angeles-based film and theater actor, and musician in a band and film music composer.
Pit Stop is a 2013 American drama film directed by Yen Tan. The film tells the story of two gay men in a small town in Texas.
The 2002 Australia rugby union tour, also known as the 2002 Wallabies spring tour, was a series of matches played in November 2002 in Argentina, England, Ireland and Italy by the Australia national rugby union team.
Kingsman: The Golden Circle is a 2017 spy action comedy film directed by Matthew Vaughn and written by Jane Goldman and Vaughn. Based on the comic book series The Secret Service by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons, the film serves as the second installment in the Kingsman film series and the sequel to Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014). The film features an ensemble cast consisting of Colin Firth, Taron Egerton, Mark Strong, Edward Holcroft, Hanna Alström, and Sophie Cookson, who reprise their roles from the first film, with Julianne Moore, Halle Berry, Pedro Pascal, Elton John, Channing Tatum, and Jeff Bridges joining the cast. The film follows members of Kingsman needing to team up with their American counterpart, Statesman, after their organization is crippled and the world is held hostage by Poppy Adams and her drug cartel, "The Golden Circle".
Rocketman is a 2019 biographical fantasy musical drama film based on the life and career of British musician Elton John. Directed by Dexter Fletcher and written by Lee Hall, the film tells the story of John in his early days in England as a prodigy at the Royal Academy of Music through his musical partnership with Bernie Taupin told through his music, and is titled after John's 1972 song "Rocket Man". The film stars Taron Egerton as John, with Jamie Bell as Taupin, Richard Madden as John Reid, and Bryce Dallas Howard as Sheila Eileen, John's mother.
1985 is a 2018 American drama film directed by Yen Tan and starring Cory Michael Smith, Virginia Madsen, Michael Chiklis, Aidan Langford, and Jamie Chung. The film is an expansion of an earlier short film of the same name that Tan released in 2016.
Causeway is a 2022 American drama film directed by Lila Neugebauer in her feature directorial debut and written by Ottessa Moshfegh, Luke Goebel, and Elizabeth Sanders. The film stars Jennifer Lawrence, Brian Tyree Henry, Linda Emond, Jayne Houdyshell, Stephen McKinley Henderson, and Russell Harvard. It follows a soldier struggling to adjust to her life after returning home to New Orleans.
Judas and the Black Messiah is a 2021 biographical crime drama film about the betrayal of Fred Hampton, chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party in late-1960s Chicago, by William O'Neal, an FBI informant. Jesse Plemons, Dominique Fishback, Ashton Sanders, Darrell Britt-Gibson, Lil Rel Howery, Algee Smith, Dominique Thorne, and Martin Sheen also star. The film is directed and produced by Shaka King, who wrote the screenplay with Will Berson, based on a story by the pair and Kenny and Keith Lucas.