
Giacomo Campiotti
Stories
When the game gets tough, you need to decide if you are going to give up or continue down the road that leads you to your dreams
A director is above all someone who can convince producers that they need his film to make money and they need him to direct it. Campiotti's stories are fragments of actual life, memories and stories that have something to teach us. Campiotti, having learnt from Monicelli and Olmi, has created a notable array of films, ranging from television to socially-committed films. But beyond the language and genres of cinema, it is the stories that are close to his heart and that he is constantly seeking. Perhaps it would be best to correct the first sentence: a director is above all someone who hunts stories.
ABOUT GIACOMO CAMPIOTTI
Giacomo Campiotti was born in Varese in 1957. He graduated in Education from the University of Bologna. For a number of years he worked in street theatre, both in Italy and abroad. He was the director's assistance for Mario Monicelli during the filming of Il Marchese del Grillo (1981), Let's Hope It's a Girl (1986) and The Rogues (1987). He joined the group Ipotesi Cinema, founded by Ermanno Olmi in Bassano del Grappa. In 1983, he created his first popular short film for the Italian national broadcaster Rai Uno, Tre Donne, which was followed by La Bomba (1985) and Ritorno al Cinema (1986). In 1989, he directed his first feature-length film with Corsa di Primavera, which is a story about provincial life seen through the eyes of children. The film was a success at the Film Critics Week at the Venice Biennale and won the best film award at the Giffoni film festival. Come due Coccodrilli (Like Two Crocodiles), with Giancarlo Giannini, Valeria Golino and Fabrizio Bentivoglio, came out in 1994. The film, released without much fanfare in Italian cinemas, soon gained notoriety, winning numerous awards and receiving a Best Foreign Language Film nomination at the 1996 Golden Globes. In 1999, Il Tempo dell’Amore (A Time to Love), written and directed by Campiotti, hit the screens. This Anglo-French co-production tells a story of love divided into three different historical and geographic moments. In 2002, he directed the TV mini-series Doctor Zhivago, an Anglo-United States co-production with an exceptional cast including Keira Knightley, Sam Neill and Hans Matheson. This series was shown to huge appeal in numerous countries. In 2005, he returned to the cinema with Mai Più come Prima (Never Again as Before), a film that looks at death, disability and the impossible nature of communication between adults and teenagers. In 2007, he directed the TV film L’Amore e la Guerra, with Daniele Liotti and Martina Stella, and then with the successful Giuseppe Moscati – L’Amore che Guarisce, with Giuseppe Fiorello playing a doctor from Naples who dedicated his life to healing the poor, becoming a Saint. The film won the Maximo Award as Best Product and Best International Production at Roma Fiction Fest in 2007, receiving praise from critics and winning over television audiences. He repeated this success with the RAI mini-series Bakhita (2009), with the amazing debut of the Senegalese Fatou Kine Boye and performances by Stefania Rocca, Fabio Sartor, Francesco Salvi and Ettore Bassi. In 2009, he directed Il Sorteggio, with Giuseppe Fiorello playing Tonino Barone, a young worker at a Fiat factory who is selected as a juror for the first Red Brigade trial in 1977.