Born in Milan on November 6th, 1965.
After attending Nuclear Engineering at Politecnico of Milan and at Purdue University of Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA, I abandoned my studies and got back to Italy to start working as a runner and later as production assistant in tv advertising and film industry.
The first TVC production company I worked with was BBE (Milan), in 1987.
In 1990 I started working as second assistant director for Central Productions.
Right after I worked as second assistant director for FilmMaster, in those days one the biggest most important production company in the world.
In 1991 I started my career as first assistant director of the most important italian and international commercial and feature film directors. Just a few names:
Roman Polansky (awarded with several Academies for different feature films)
Gabriele Salvatores (awarded with an Academy for “Mediterraneo” as best foreign film)
Michael Radford (awarded with an Academy for “The postman”)
Tony Kaye (director and DOP of “American History X”)
Terry Gilliam (member of mythical Monty Python)
Erik Ifergan
Michael Haussman
Luke Scott (son of a legendary Director)
Jonas Akerlund (Rolling Stones and Madonna music videos)
Federico Brugia
Dario Piana (director of “Sotto il vestito niente 2”)
Bruce Van Dusen
Jim Manera
Ambrogio Lo Giudice (director of several fictions for RAI, National broadcast company)
Ago Panini (director of “Aspettando il sole” and “The stone merchant”)
Luca Lucini (director of “Tre metri sopra il cielo”, a blockbuster in Italy)
Bill Fertik
Luca Maroni
Sebastian Heidin
Billy Pols
Felix de Castro
Catxo
Santiago Zannou
…and many many others
In 2000 I also worked as a director, codirecting with Michele Nocchi (Creative Director of JWT) and together we shot a commercial for Lever – “Svelto braking” – and one for “Temporary”.
The first was awarded with a Key Award, awarded as best commercial ever made for Lever and, last but not least, got straight into Cannes shortlist (but ended up with no final victory….). All this happened in 2001.
In 2002 Hasbro campaign, directed only by me as Director (in the meantime we split our careers), reached the final at London Low Budget Advertising Film Festival and won the first prize at AD spot low budget in Rome.
In 2003 I shot my first short film, “SCIARE DE FOCU” (“Streets of fire” in pure sicilian dialect, still on YouTube), produced by ASAP (in those days based in Milan, now in Morocco). The short was awarded at Luton Film Festival and Florence Tagliacorto Film Festival as best short film.
In 2006 I quit directing and focused back to my roots as 1st assistant director and, as such, I worked for fiction, TV movies and feature films.
Production companies I work – or worked with:
FILMMASTER
BRW
MERCURIO CINEMATOGRAFICA
MOVIE MAGIC
AKITA
INDIANA PRODUCTIONS
HAIBUN
BIGMAMA
INDIANA PRODUCTIONS
OLYMPIQUE
UTOPIA
That’s it
Claudio
