First Kiss (2014 film)

First Kiss
Directed byTatia Pilieva[1]
StarringNatalia Bonifacci
Luke Cook
Corby Griesenbeck
Jill Larson
Marianna Palka
Karim Saleh
Ingrid Schram
Nicole Simone
Soko
Elisabetta Tedla
CinematographyAndre Lascaris
Edited byGarret Price
Music bySoko
Release date
  • 10 March 2014 (2014-03-10)
Running time
3 min
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

First Kiss is a 2014 American short film directed and produced by Tatia Pilieva. The film has music composed by Soko.[2]

The project was born of PIlieva's collection of photographs of herself and husband cinematographer Andre Lascaris kissing over the years of their relationship.[3] It inspired the idea of capturing first kisses on film, and the idea came to life when Pilieva's friend Melissa Coker, the fashion designer behind WREN, reached out about doing a film short to promote her Fall 2014 collection.[3] Pilieva recruited 20 single friends, dressed in WREN, to meet and kiss for the first time on set as five cameras rolled continuously.[3] Launched online on March 11, 2014, the three-and-a-half-minute short film went viral[4] and as of May 17, 2014, had 59 million views.[3] As of July 27, 2023, the video has over 151.7 million views.

Some backlash emerged when viewers learned the film was a clothing ad, although the company was mentioned in the opening and closing credits.[4] WREN sales increased by almost 14,000 percent.[5]

  1. ^ "First Kiss, il video più virale del momento è… uno spot". tiragraffi.it (in Italian). Retrieved 2015-10-24.
  2. ^ "Film captures first kiss of 20 strangers". telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 2015-10-24.
  3. ^ a b c d Pilieva, Tatia (2014-03-17). "The Story Behind "First Kiss"". HuffPost. Retrieved 2021-07-02.
  4. ^ a b Koblin, John (2014-03-14). "A Kiss Is Just a Kiss, Unless It's an Ad for a Clothing Company". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-07-02.
  5. ^ Coker, Melissa. "How We Made A Viral Video Of Strangers Kissing And Increased Sales By Nearly 14,000%". Business Insider. Retrieved 2021-07-02.