When Jeff’s lifelong best friend Mark dies, he is left in charge of handling Mark’s possessions and tying up loose ends. Through a trail of Mark’s email correspondence, Jeff learns of Mark’s secret online romance with Andrea, a handsome Italian who is scheduled to visit the United States and meet Mark for the first time. With the trip already booked, Andrea decides to come anyway and learn more about his recently departed friend. In the midst of grieving, these two strangers share a single night of intimate conversation, good old American country music and sexual tension that leads to perhaps what is the most tender (yet still steamy) brief encounter ever portrayed in queer cinema.
Ciao is Malaysian-born director Yen Tan’s second feature film and is the winner of the Audience Award at Montreal’s Image + Nation Film Festival in 2008.
WINNER
Jury Prize, 2008 Philadelphia Gay & Lesbian Film Festival Audience Choice Award, 2008 Image + Nation
Total time: 87 min