Piccioni, Giuseppe

(1953-)

   Director and screenwriter. Piccioni began making short films in the early 1980s while studying at the Gaumont Film School in Rome. In 1985, after working for a period in advertising, he helped found the Vertigo Film production company, with which he produced his first feature, Il grande Blek (The Mighty Blek, 1987). A warm-hearted if melancholic coming-of-age film, Blek was much acclaimed when presented in competition at the Berlin Film Festival and in Italy received both a Nastro d'argento and the De Sica Prize for Young Cinema. There followed the romantic road movie Chiedi la luna (Ask for the Moon, 1991), the more cynical Condannato a nozze (Condemned to Wed, 1993), and Cuori al verde (Penniless Hearts, 1996), a bittersweet comedy about midlife crisis. In 1999 Fuori dal mondo (Not of This World, 1999), a moving tale about the profound spiritual transformation wrought on the lives of several people by the discovery of an abandoned baby, won five David di Donatello and four Ciak d'oro awards and became the Italian nominee for Best Foreign Film at that year's Oscars. Two years later the intense love story Luce dei miei occhi (Light of My Eyes, 2001) deeply divided the critics but was never-theless nominated for the Golden Lion at the Venice Festival, with both its leads also being awarded the prestigious Volpi Cup. Piccioni's most recent effort, La vita che vorrei (The Life I Want, 2004), a romantic melodrama that cleverly blurs the boundaries between cinema and real life, was also nominated for five David di Donatello awards.

   Historical Dictionary of Italian Cinema by Alberto Mira