Gianni Amelio

Gianni Amelio (born 20 January 1945; Catanzaro) is an Italian film director. His film "The Way We Laughed" (1998) won a Golden Lion at the 55th Venice Film Festival.

Amelio was born in San Pietro di Magisano, province of Catanzaro, Calabria. His father moved to Argentina soon after his birth. He spent his youth and adolescence with his mother and his grandmother. The absence of a paternal figures will be a constant in Amelio's future works. During his university studies of philosophy in Messina, Amelio got interested in cinema, writing as film critic for a local magazine. In 1965 he moved to Rome, where he worked as operator and assistant director for figures such as Liliana Cavani and Vittorio De Seta. He also worked for television, directing documentaries and advertisements.

Amelio's first important work is the TV film "Sun City", directed in 1973 for RAI TV and inspired to Tommaso Campanella's work. This was followed by "The Cinema According to Bertolucci" (1976) a documentary about "1900" shooting, and the thriller "Special Effects" (1978). Two years later he directed the mystery "Death at Work" (1978), which won prizes at Locarno and Hyères festivals. "The Little Archimedes" of 1979 was also critically acclaimed. In 1982 he debuted for cinema proper with "Blow to the Heart" (1982), about Italian terrorism, presented at the Venice Film Festival. In 1987 Amelio released "Via Panisperna Boys", about the lives of 1930 Italian physicists such as Enrico Fermi and Edoardo Ama…