Ciao Alberto catches up with Alberto, the barnacled sea monster from Luca, during the quiet stretch after his best friend leaves for school, and the friendship he's found instead with a fisherman twice his size.
What is Ciao Alberto about?
With Luca off at school for the term, Alberto has thrown himself into life on the docks of Portorosso, working alongside Massimo: a towering, one-armed fisherman who says little and seems entirely unbothered by anything. Alberto is convinced Massimo is the most capable person he has ever met, and spends the short chasing every chance to prove himself worth mentoring. Small jobs around the boat turn into a string of minor disasters, each one testing how far Alberto will go to earn a nod of approval from someone he admires without reservation.
About the cast
Jack Dylan Grazer returns to voice Alberto, with Marco Barricelli as Massimo; Jacob Tremblay and Luigi La Monica also lend their voices, carrying over the tone of the feature the short extends.
Context & significance
Released in 2021, Ciao Alberto runs a brisk eight minutes and functions as a direct follow-up to that year's animated feature Luca, set in the same Italian Riviera town of Portorosso. Director McKenna Jean Harris keeps the focus tight on a single relationship rather than the feature's wider cast, using the short format to explore what Alberto does with himself once the story he supported has moved on without him. Because the run time is so short, the story stays deliberately small: no new setting, no new threat, just one afternoon of a kid trying to keep up with someone he's decided is worth impressing.
Watching Ciao Alberto on Ktime
Ciao Alberto is available on K-Time with Persian dubbing and Persian subtitles, making it an easy watch for younger Farsi-speaking viewers. A free K-Time account is enough to start watching, and the page can be browsed without logging in first. It works well as a quick follow-up watch right after finishing the feature it extends.