I’m not certain if there has ever been a Star Trek fan film produced entirely in Italy before, but there certainly hasn’t been a major one of note…until now, that is. Benvuto a DELL’AMORE E DELL’ONORE, which translates to welcome to OF LOVE AND HONOR, an artistic fan film from showrunner and writer CARLO “JACK” PONISSI and director WALTER “WEBB” CHIORINO.
More than two and a half years in the making, this fan film got its start back in late 2021 with the launch of a crowd-funder. To show what they had in mind, a short teaser trailer was created with actors show in front of green screen and composited against TOS-era backgrounds, although their hope was to take in enough to construct some practical TOS set pieces. This was their teaser trailer from February 2022, dubbed in English to encourage donations…
Jack reached out to me for help in promoting the campaign, but sadly, the day they launched their GoFundMe, February 26th, Vladamir Putin ordered Russian troops to invade Ukraine. Crowd-funding an Italian Star Trek fan film seemed to be the last thing on anyone’s priority list, especially in Europe. Ultimately, they took in enough to buy some uniforms but nothing more, and any dreams of building TOS sets had to be abandoned. Jack himself ended up financing the lion’s share of the production costs out of his own pocket.
Later on, Jack once again requested my assistance in cleaning up the English translation of the script that they had created for dubbing with voice-over actors. While the original fan film that was just released is performed completely in Italian (a beautiful language that I love to hear spoken), they are also currently working on a dubbed English version that will be released some time in the near future. That will make Dell’Amore e Dell’Onore / Of Love and Honor one of the only Star Trek fan films to ever be produced in two different languages.
The Italian version currently has English subtitles which you can turn on tp display in YouTube. As you can see when you watch the film (below), the sets and props are minimal. Indeed, Dell’Amore e dell’Onore / Of Love and Honor feels more like a filmed stage play, which only adds to the unique European flavor of their presentation. In many ways, this film carries the look and feel of an independent foreign film that one might see in a small art house theater showing international fare. It is certainly not your typical Star Trek fan film! Take a look…
Another unique aspect of Dell’Amore e Dell’Onore / Of Love and Honor is the music. Not only is it completely original (composed by Jack Ponissi himself), it is also available online for download at the following locations:
The music is definitely worth downloading and listening to just by itself, as it sounds radiant and majestic, a true sci-fi symphonic score on a level comparable to what one might see and hear on the big screen.
Speaking of the big screen, the group premiered their fan film this past Saturday (June 22) to a live audience of about 70 people at Cinema Borgonuovo in Turin, Italy, where Jack is based. He told me that “…they seemed to like it a lot.”
In the meantime, here on the little screen (your computer or smartphone), I have an enlightening interview with Jack and Walter along with JÖRG SÖLINER (their VFX artist from Germany) and MARCO DOMENICO MALPEZZI (an Italian actor who played Vulcan communications officer Sydek). Although we did have some technical issues with Marco’s Zoom feed, we managed to work through it. And their English is by far infinitely superior to my Italian and German! (That’s what happens when you live in Europe instead of America—you become bilingual…or trilingual or more!) Take a look and enjoy…
Please note, they are still crowd-funding, trying to raise additional money to produce their second and final part. Donate here.