CIAO: Q&A with Yen Tan

Adam Neal Smith, Alessandro Calza in Ciao

Yen Tan's Ciao, an intimate, deliberately paced drama about two strangers who develop a close bond following the unexpected death of a mutual friend, has been garnering praise at various film festivals, winning the jury prize at the Philadelphia Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, the audience award at Montreal's Image + Nation, and an Honorable Mention at AFI Dallas.

Written by Tan and Italian web designer Alessandro Calza, Ciao stars Adam Neal Smith as Jeff, a man grieving over the freeway-accident death of his best friend, Mark (Chuck Blaum). Enter Andrea (Calza, in his screen debut), a Genoa resident with whom Mark had developed an "intimate" — as in "emotionally intimate" — online relationship. In fact, as it turns out, Andrea knows things about Mark of which Jeff, despite having known his friend for years, was completely unaware. Andrea and Jeff spend one weekend together reminiscing about their dead friend, whose resonance works as a conduit for the two men's budding connection.

At Twitch, Michael Guillen calls Ciao "one of my favorite films from Frameline 32," while Eric Hynes at indieWIRE writes that "during a time when American independent cinema either grunts elliptically under moody skies or chatters banally cross-legged on the living room floor, the purposeful, probing dialogue in Yen Tan's Ciao feels like a throwback to an entirely different reality. … Nothing but cheap suspense is lost when information and honest feelings are exchanged in Ciao, and what's gained is something more lovely, complicated, and true."

Yen Tan has kindly answered (via e-mail) a few questions about Ciao. See next page.

Ciao, which is currently on screens in San Francisco, Boston, and Denver, opens in Los Angeles (at the Sunset 5 in West Hollywood) on December 26. (Full screening schedule.)

Official site.

Alessandro Calza site.

Photos: Regent Releasing