Garrone, Matteo

(1968-)

   Director, screenwriter, cameraman. One of the most impressive young directors to emerge in the late 1990s, Garrone studied art before working for several years as an assistant camera operator. His first short film, Silhouette (1995), a semifictional presentation of the lives of Nigerian prostitutes in Italy, won first prize at the 1996 Sacher Festival. Silhouette formed the basis for the opening episode of his first feature, Terra di mezzo (Middle Ground, 1997), a film that forcefully highlighted the hinterland experience of illegal migrants in Italy and which was awarded the Jury Special Prize at the Turin International Festival of Young Cinema. Garrone's next film, Ospiti (Guests, 1998), the tragicomic portrayal of two young Albanian immigrants who come to live as "guests" in one of the wealthier parts of Rome, won the Italian Cineclub Federation (FEDIC) award and special mention at the Venice Festival. After Estate romana (Roman Summer, 2000), another tragicomic portrayal of existential dislocation in modern-day Rome, Garrone made the film that many have considered his best to date, L'imbalsamatore (The Embalmer, 2002), a slightly surreal and macabre black comedy that was well received both in Italy and abroad and that was nominated for nine David di Donatello awards, eventually winning for Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor. After Primo amore (First Love, 2004), the story of a goldsmith's obsessive attempt to reduce the body of the woman he loves to his ideal dimensions, Garrone has recently achieved his greatest triumph to date with Gomorra (2008), a powerful adaptation of Roberto Savianio's best-selling novel about the Neapolitan mafia, which was awarded the Grand Prize at Cannes.

   Historical Dictionary of Italian Cinema by Alberto Mira