'Call Me By Your Name' Director Suggests Sequel Would Tackle AIDS Crisis

‘Call Me By Your Name’ director Luca Guadagnino has revealed his intention for a sequel to his Oscar-nominated film, which would address the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s.

Based on the novel of the same name, the film version of ‘Call Me By Your Name’ takes place several years earlier than the story in the book.

However, speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Luca has said he hopes to move Elio and Oliver’s stories along in a second film, which would pick up several years later, with HIV and AIDS said to be a “very relevant” part of his proposed story.

“I think Elio will be a cinephile,” he explained, “And I’d like him to be in a movie theatre watching Paul Vecchiali’s Once More [the first French film to feature a storyline about AIDS]… That could be the first scene [in the sequel].”

Luca added: “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, what does he want — and what is left a few years later of such an emotional punch that made him who he is?”

It was announced earlier this week that ‘Call Me By Your Name’ was up for four awards at this year’s Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Actor for newcomer Timothée Chalamet.

This year’s most nominated film was ‘The Shape Of Water’ with a whopping 13 nods, followed by Christopher Nolan’s ‘Dunkirk’ on eight.