‘Call Me By Your Name’ sequel will address the AIDS crisis
Luca Guadagnino wants to pick up where the first film left off.
Call Me By Your Name’s director has revealed HIV and AIDS will be a relevant part of the film’s possible sequel.
Luca Guadagnino previously said he wants to turn the critically acclaimed film – based on Andre Aciman’s 2007 novel of the same name – into a series in order to expand the love story between Elio (Timothée Chalamet) and Oliver (Armie Hammer).
Speaking to the Hollywood Reporter, Guadagnino revealed how the possible sequel would pick up exactly where the first film ended.
He said: “The novel has 40 pages at the end that goes through the next 20 years of the lives of Elio and Oliver, so there is some sort of indication through the intention of author Andre Aciman that the story can continue.”
“In my opinion, Call Me can be the first chapter of the chronicles of the life of these people that we met in this movie, and if the first one is a story of coming of age and becoming a young man, maybe the next chapter will be, what is the position of the young man in the world”.
Guadagnino continued: “What does he want – and what is left a few years later of such an emotional punch that made him who he is?”
While the novel takes during the height of the AIDS epidemic in 1987, the film adaptation occurs around the time HIV was discovered in 1983.
Despite setting the film in a different time, Guadagnino doesn’t want to shy away from the disease and has claimed HIV and AIDS will be a “very relevant” part of the story in the sequel.
He said: “I think Elio will be a cinephile, and I’d like him to be in a movie theatre watching Paul Vecchiali’s Once More. That could be the first scene [in the sequel].”
Once More is a 1988 film which became the first French movie to address AIDS. It tells the story of a man who falls in love with another man after leaving his wife.
While a sequel to Call Me By Your Name hasn’t been officially announced yet, the film’s critical praise and Oscar, Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations may just increase the chances of it happening.