About Us

The Consortium of indies, Artistes & Others (The Consortium, or CiAO), was formed in early 2009 and was quite successful and active through 2015. We made over a dozen pretty good indie short films, and all learned a lot about all aspects of filmmaking.

Then, as these things tend to eventually go, interest sadly and unfortunately waned and faded, and we went into hibernation at that point. But we are now ready for a resurgence in 2024.

CiAO is intended as a varied group of of people interested in independent film and other related subject areas. This can include all areas and aspects of indie film production, other productions of various kinds, multimedia, watching & appreciation, and more. That broad interest comprises, but is not limited to:

We envision CiAO as a way for people to meet others with similar (and dissimilar) interests, sharing of information, resource awareness (actors, crew, & others), human networking, and as an information and event nexus and clearing house to keep people informed about what is happening in the Greater Mid-Northern CA (NorCal) area (Redding, Anderson, Red Bluff, Chico, and beyond) regarding all aspects and areas of interest in film, especially independent film, and related subject matter.

We plan on having a variety of tools at hand for keeping abreast of events and other information, including a calendar, discussion forum, announcements, news items, etc... Let us know what you think and would like to see.

Check out the Team CiAO zombie short film we made in 2010, "The Chosen", for the UK 2 Days Later Short Film Competition. We came in 4th out of ~13 submissions. It was filmed in Chico, CA and Bidwell Park.

For a contest film, filmed in 48 non-consecutive hours (on our honor, which we stuck to rather religiously, to be fair), on a nano-budget, it didn't turn out half bad. Several Team CiAO members and other local talent worked very hard on the project, from concept, to screenwriting, Pre-Production, Production / Shooting, Post-Production, Editing, Music, etc. As always, a BIG Thank You to everyone who worked on the film.

The competition was specifically designed to encourage filmmakers, enthusiasts and students to produce a 10 minute horror film in only 48 hours on a micro-budget. All competition entries were shown to a public audience at a special Halloween Screening Event at the Theatre Royal Margate. (which none of Team CiAO could attend, unfortunately)