Giuseppe Tornatore

GIUSEPPE TORNATORE

Date of Birth: May 27, 1956

Born and raised in Bagheria, Italy, Giuseppe Tornatore began his career as a still photographer. He moved into directing plays, then television directing in 1979 with Italy’s national television network, RAI. His feature film directorial debut was Il Camorrista (1985), starring Ben Gazzara. For his effort, he won a Silver Ribbon as Best New Director from the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists. It was his second film, however, that established Tornatore as an internationally-acclaimed director. Cinema Paradiso (1998), about the influence of a movie house and movies in general on a young boy, earned not only an Oscar and a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film, but five BAFTA awards (including Best Screenplay for Tornatore), a Cannes Grand Jury Prize and several more awards from international film festivals.

Since then, Tornatore has directed several more Italian language films, including Stanno tutti bene (1990) starring Marcello Mastroianni which won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at Cannes, La Domenica specialmente (1991) starring Patricia Arquette, Una pura formalità (1994) starring Gérard Depardieu and Roman Polanski, and L’uomo delle stelle (1995) and La leggenda del pianista sull'oceano (1998) both of which won him Best Director at the David di Donatello Awards. He won a Golden Swann at the Cabourg Romantic Film Festival for Malèna (2000), starring Monica Bellucci.

Tornatore lives in Italy and is currently working on bringing his new screenplay, Leningrad, to the big screen.

Filmography:

Leningrad (2005)
Malèna (2000)
La leggenda del pianista sull'oceano/The legend of 1900 (1998)
L’uomo delle stelle (1995)
Una pura formalità (1994)
La Domenica specialmente (1991)
Stanno tutti bene (1990)
Cinema Paradiso (1989)
Il Camorrista (1985)