Toto Forever

Toto Forever (2010)

Never lose the Hope

A wide-eyed young postman and a gangster in trouble with the mafia find their lives become inexplicably intertwined when a heady affair attracts danger at every turn.

Date of release
2010-04-22
TMDB
6.2 / 10 (10)
Runtime
13m
Genres
Romance, Drama
Director
Roberto F. Canuto

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Filmed in: California

Toto Forever, also known in Spanish as Toto Para Siempre or Siempre Toto, is a 2010 dramatic short film directed by Roberto F. Canuto, written by Canuto and Xu Xiaoxi, and starring Kylan James, Kjord Davis, Diana Grivas, Alexander Aguila, and Alexandra Smothers. The film was screened at over thirty international film festivals, mainly those with an LGBT theme, winning awards including best film. It is considered a cult film in many circles, becoming a classic in underground Gay Cinema after many screenings around the world.

Production

Toto Forever's director, Roberto F. Canuto, shot the film as a graduation project at the New York Film Academy (NYFA) in Hollywood, but he finished the post-production work after graduation, including adding music by Andrea Centazzo. The film was the first collaboration between the director and the composer, one which was repeated in their next films together - Desire Street and Ni Jing: Thou Shalt Not Steal.

The main idea behind the characters is based on cartoon figures from the Japanese yaoi. In the opening and closing credits the film uses sketches that represent the characters of Toto and Mark, bringing an added dimension to the story. Susan Opperman, a South African artist with an MFA in fine arts, created the images, following her own vision of the story.

The film was shot in 16mm Kodak film and the principal photography took place in the summer of 2008 in California. Some of the locations were Mulholland Drive, Burbank, California, as well as some isolated roads outside Los Angeles. The post-production was completed in 2010.

Xu Xiaoxi, Roberto F. Canuto's collaborator in the directing (Desire Street and Ni Jing: Thou Shalt Not Steal), was director of photography on Toto Forever. The kissing scene between the characters is a key element of the film. According to the Canuto: "I wanted to create a montage for the kissing scene.

The main theme of Toto Forever is hope. According to the director, he wanted to: "recreate the moment when the human spirit recovers after a deep tragedy and rediscovers a new faith about life. Emily Dickinson's poem "Hope" was an inspiration for this film. While she faced the tragedy, it was with this painful moments when she has to allowed herself to find "hope" and move on.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

Recommended