Telling you what a good thing I think it’s going to be and how important I think it’s going to be for John’s story,’” Bird says. Touching base to see how the film is going. “She said to me, ‘Oh, I just felt like calling you. The voice on the other end of the line was Lois Caleo, John’s mother.

Then, out of the blue, at 4am in the morning Lipari time, a phone call came. Feeling despondent and wracked with doubt, Bird said to his partner, who was travelling with him: “No one has commissioned the film. The Super 8 mishap felt like the straw that broke the camel’s back. Certain parties attempted to block it on the question of who, the co-director politely demurs. Remembering the Man’s original distributor jumped ship halfway through production, never explaining why. The film-makers had run out of money, relying on credit card transactions they knew they couldn’t repay any time soon. This was the latest in a long series of setbacks. The film stock was jamming (it literally wouldn’t come out of the camera), and most of the scenes Bird shot were out of focus and unusable. Or at least that was the intention nothing was going to plan. 'Amazingly more than the sum of its parts, a book to stir you up and knock you around and wring you out.Tim Conigrave and John Caleo. 'Full of compassion, candour and zest for life.' The Australian 'A fine, tender and sexy book.'David Marr

And the strength of heart both men had to find when they tested positive to HIV.Īs uplifting as it is moving, Holding the Man is a funny, sad and celebratory account of growing up gay, and a powerful love story. With honesty and insight, Conigrave's bestselling memoirexplores the highs and lows of any partnership- the intimacy, constraints and temptations. So began a relationship that was to last for fifteen years, a love affair that weathered disapproval, separation and, ultimately, death. In the mid-seventies at an all-boys Catholic school in Melbourne, Timothy Conigrave fell wildly and sweetly in love with the captain of the football team. Now a major feature film directed by Neil Armfield and starring Ryan Corr, Craig Stott, Kerry Fox, Camilla Ah Kin and Sarah Snook with Guy Pearce and Anthony LaPaglia.

Holding the man by timothy conigrave