Luca Guadagnino
Multi-award-winning filmmaker, screenwriter, producer and actor, his films as director include The Protagonists (1999), Melissa P. (2005), I Am Love (2010) and A Bigger Splash (2015).
In 2017 he directed the acclaimed Call Me by Your Name, nominated for three Golden Globes, four BAFTA awards and four Academy Awards, with James Ivory winning the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.
He became internationally well-known in 2010 for the critically acclaimed I Am Love, starring one of his favorite actresses, Tilda Swinton. The film was an Academy Award nominee for Best Costume Design and a Golden Globe® and BAFTA nominee for Best Foreign Language Film. More recently, he directed A Bigger Splash (2015), again starring Tilda Swinton, alongside Ralph Fiennes, Dakota Johnson and Matthias Schoenaerts. The film premiered in competition at the Venice Film Festival with later screenings at the Busan International Film Festival and the London Film Festival. Guadagnino’s debut feature film as director, The Protagonists, starring Tilda Swinton, premiered in English language at the 1999 Venice Film Festival.
His other directing credits for the cinema include: the feature film Melissa P. (2005) and the documentaries Mundo Civilizado (2002), Cuoco Contadino (“Farmer Cook”, 2004), Inconscio italiano (“Italian Unconscious”, 2011) and Bertolucci on Bertolucci (co-directed with Walter Fasano, 2013). He also directed three more documentaries as part of the “The Love Factory” series: Tilda Swinton: The Love Factory (2002, short), Arto Lindsay Perdoa A Beleza (2004, short), and Pippo Delbono – Bisogna morire (2008). Guadagnino’s projects have been presented at many of the world’s most prestigious film festivals, including Venice, Berlin, Toronto, Locarno, Busan and Sundance.
Guadagnino’s frequent appearances in the international cinema circuit led him to sitting in the juries of several festivals, including the Turin Film Festival, (2003 and 2006), the Venice Film
Festival, with Quentin Tarantino president (2010), the Beirut International Film Festival, as President of the jury (2011) and the Locarno Film Festival (2011). Born in Palermo, Italy, he grew up in Ethiopia, where his father taught History and Italian. From the very beginning Guadagnino began to develop an international perspective and a thirst for creative expression. He graduated in Cinema History and Criticism from Rome’s Sapienza University with a thesis on Jonathan Demme. He debuted as theater director in 2006 with a production of PatrickMarber’s “Closer” and as opera director in 2011 with Verdi’s “Falstaff”, produced for the Philharmonic Theater in Verona, Italy. In 2012 Guadagnino founded his production company, “Frenesy”, producing the film by Ferdinando Cito Filomarino, Antonia, and the documentaries Belluscone- una storia siciliana (“A Sicilian Tale”); Ombre dal fondo (“Shadows from the Depths”), as well as his own Bertolucci on Bertolucci.
In 2018 he directed the remake of Dario Argento’s cult horror film, Suspiria, which saw him working once again alongside Tilda Swinton and Dakota Johnson. The film premiered in competition at the 75th Venice Film Festival and was released in theaters on January 1, 2019. In 2019 he directed The Staggering Girl, presented at the 72nd Cannes Film Festival in the
Quinzaine des Réalisateurs section. The film originates in an artistic dialogue between Luca Guadagnino himself and the creative director of Maison Valentino, Pierpaolo Piccioli: together they implement a narrative experiment that brings together the languages of cinema and of couture, telling the chapters of a woman’s life through her relationship with her daughter. The exceptional cast, strongly desired by Luca Guadagnino and Pierpaolo Piccioli, brings to life a set of complex characters played by Julianne Moore, Kyle MacLachlan, Marthe Keller, Kiki Layne, Mia Goth and Alba Rohrwacher.