Ciao! Manhattan

Ciao! Manhattan is a 1972 American avant-garde film starring Edie Sedgwick. The film blends scripted narrative with documentary footage to depict the rise and fall of a troubled socialite and former celebrity known as Susan Superstar. Ciao! Manhattan was assembled from footage shot over several years. The first project, a black-and-white film in 1967 by underground filmmaker Chuck Wein, was launched with great fanfare as Sedgwick was emerging from the height of her fame as a Warhol superstar. Production was repeatedly delayed by Sedgwick's declining mental health and Paul America's legal issues. In 1970, filmmakers John Palmer and David Weisman revived the project in California, restructuring it around cinéma vérité-style audio recordings and newly filmed scenes. Completed shortly after Sedgwick's death in 1971, the film was released in 1972 and has since been regarded as a cult classic and a poignant record of Sedgwick's life and New York's 1960s underground scene.