Baldwin actor debuts first film

A Baldwin artist and writer living with a disability has released a movie, “2125,” which he filmed himself, on Prime Video, and announced the publication of a novel, “The Book of Daniel” this month.

Since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, Sean “Ian” Iannarone, 45, has been working from his home, writing and producing his documentary-styled film, “2125.” The story, set in the future, follows Long Island resident Daniel Hawkins’ journey through a series of digital diary entries in the early stages of a worldwide quarantine. The film was released on Prime Video in December. 

Iannarone, who goes by the shortened version of his last name, also has been writing “The Book of Daniel,” a story told from the perspective of a child who develops otherworldly powers, for the past decade. Ian said he is publishing his novel with Austin Macauley Publishers, based in London, and plans to release his book to the public within the next six months. He said the book is completely written and is currently undergoing editing and cover design before it’s officially published later this year. 

Ian said he got the inspiration to write it after he suffered a work-related injury in 2012, which left him disabled and searching for new ways to create art and literature.

“I’ve been a writer my whole life,” he said. “I really started writing when I was going through my recovery process and because my disability hindered me from many physical activities. At first, I would just write out a paragraph at a time, and I just kept at it until I finished a novel.”

A 1995 Baldwin High School graduate, Ian went on to study biology at St. Peter’s University in New Jersey. He left St. Peter’s in 1997 after a semester and returned to Long Island to play baseball and study liberal arts at  Molloy College. He then left that school and travelled to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic to play baseball for local leagues with his friends for six months in early 1998.

He returned to the U.S. in 1998 and enrolled at CW Post, where he studied fine arts and graduated magna cum laude in 2000. He got a job as a substitute teacher in Coney Island, working in three public schools, and then took a full-time job as a special education teacher for Public School 94 in 2001. Ian recalled being in close proximity to the World Trade Center attacks in September 2001, seeing a plane strike one of the twin towers. He said it was a nightmarish scenario – and the trauma led him to leave his teaching position. 

He worked as a wedding photographer and an assistant manager at Guitar Center until 2003, and had a job at Davis Studios in Manhattan from 2004 to 2008. He worked as a cable tech for Cablevision from 2008 to 2012, until he suffered a severe spinal injury while carrying a ladder in December 2012, leaving him disabled. 

“It was horrific,” Ian recalled. “I got home and dropped to the floor. I then went to the hospital and learned I needed surgeries.”

He filed for disability but soon became bored with life at home and started searching for new ways to express himself creatively, as he was unable to perform physical activities and living in chronic pain. He soon realized he wanted to write a novel. 

He tried to write a page each day, and after 10 years he said he’s almost completed two novels, including “The Book of Daniel.”

In 2018, Ian tried his hand at acting in New York City, and worked as an extra on film sets. Ian would continue filling roles as a background actor until he got his first lead role in the film “Dragon: The Weapon of God,” a 2022 film about a teen with superpowers set in New York City. In 2022, he figured he, too, could write, act, and produce his own movie, “2125,” which he completed last October.

Ian said he’s now in the final stages of writing his second novel, which he said will be a contemporary version of Dante’s “Inferno.” He expects to publish the book in the next five years.