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Gabriele Salvatores

Gabriele Salvatores

Directing

Biography

Gabriele Salvatores (born 30 July 1950) is an Italian Academy Award -winning film director and screenwriter. Born in Naples , Salvatores debuted as a theater director in 1972, founding in Milan the Teatro dell'Elfo, for which he directed several avant-garde pieces until 1989. In that year, he directed his third feature film, Marrakech Express , which was followed in 1990 by Turné . Both films shared a group of actor-friends, including Diego Abatantuono and Fabrizio Bentivoglio , who will be present in many of his later movies. Turné was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival. In 1991, Salvatores received international praise for Mediterraneo , which won an Academy Award as best foreign film. It also won three David di Donatello , the most important award for Italian cinema, and a Nastro d'Argento . In 1992, he released Puerto Escondido , from the eponymous novel by Pino Cacucci , in which Abatantuono and Bentivoglio were joined by another standard actor for Salvatores, Claudio Bisio . The following year he directed Sud , featuring Silvio Orlando , an attempt to denounce the political and social situation of the Mezzogiorno of Italy seen from the point of view of the unemployed and those at the margins of society. The main themes of Salvatores' screenplays are escape from a reality that cannot be accepted or understood, nostalgia for friends, and voyages that never end. A new experimental period, however, started in 1997 with Nirvana , a science fiction/ cyberpunk attempt which received mixed reviews. This was followed by the surreal Denti ( Teeth , 2000), and Amnèsia (2002). Both featured Sergio Rubini . In 2003 he directed the financially successful I'm Not Scared , based on the Niccolò Ammaniti novel of the same name. In 2005 he directed the noir Quo Vadis, Baby? . His 2008 film As God Commands was entered into the 31st Moscow International Film Festival.

Known For

The Invisible Boy
6.3

Michele is thirteen year old, shy, unpopular at school, and in love with Stella. After wearing a costume for a Halloween party, he finds out that he's invisible.

The Invisible Boy

2014
The Invisible Boy: Second Generation
6.4

Three years later Michele (The Invisible boy) meets his mother and his twin sister. Both have stories and superpowers but their intentions may not be what Michele thinks.

The Invisible Boy: Second Generation

2018
Nirvana
6.5

Jimi, a computer game designer, finds that his latest product has been infected by a virus which has given consciousness to the main character of the game, Solo. Tormented by the memory of his fled girlfriend Lisa and begged by Solo to end its useless "life", Jimi begins a search for people who can help him both to discover what happened to Lisa and to delete his game before it is released.

Nirvana

1997
Mediterraneo
7.6

Greek Sea, World War II. An Italian ship leaves a handful of soldiers in a little island; their mission is to spot enemy ships and to hold the island in case of attack. The village of the island seems abandoned and there isn't a single enemy in sight, so the soldiers begin to relax a little. Things change when their ship is hit and destroyed by the enemy, and the soldiers find themselves abandoned there.

Mediterraneo

1991
I'm Not Scared
7.1

In a tiny community enclosed by wheat fields, the adults shelter indoors, while six children venture out on their bikes across the scorched, deserted countryside. Exploring a dilapidated and uninhabited farmhouse, nine-year-old Michele discovers a secret so momentous, so terrible, that he dares not tell anyone about it …

I'm Not Scared

2003
Naples to New York
7.2

In the immediate post-war period, amidst the rubble of a poverty-ridden Naples, two kids, Carmine and Celestina, try to survive as best they can by helping each other out. One night, they secretly board a ship bound for New York to reach Celestina’s sister, who emigrated to America several years earlier. The two children join the many Italian emigrants seeking a new life in America and arrive in an unknown metropolis, which, after several misadventures, they will learn to call home.

Naples to New York

2024
Quo vadis, baby?
7.8

Set in Bologna, it is a noir from the deep and tense tones. Protagonist is Giorgia Cantini, a private investigator forty years, apparently sullen, rebellious and instinctive.

Quo vadis, baby?

2008
Siberian Education
6.8

The story of a gang of children growing up in a community of banished criminals, in a forgotten corner of the former Soviet Union. This community rejects the world outside. The only law it obeys… is its own. Against this backdrop two best friends, Kolyma and Gagarin, gradually become fierce enemies as they find themselves on opposite sides of the strict code of honour of the ‘honest criminal’ brotherhood.

Siberian Education

2013
Amnèsia
5.6

On the Spanish island of Ibiza, porn filmmaker Sandro and Angelino, the manager of a beachside watering hole, find their very different lives overlapping. Meanwhile, the island police chief, who is currently at odds with his rebellious son Jorge, is investigating the death of a drug dealer (which was accidentally brought on by Angelino). Jorge's plans to move to America have so far been thwarted by his father, but when he finds out about the affair his dad had been having with a male nightclub dancer, he uses it as blackmail fodder.

Amnèsia

2002
Teeth
6.5

Antonio is a man born with unusually large incisors; his freakishly huge teeth made him an outcast as a child and as man he has become obsessive and controlling in his relationships with women. Convinced that his girlfriend cheated on him (with her dentist, ça va sans dire), Antonio insults her in a fit of anger and in the fight she breaks off one of his teeth. Antonio now must travel across the country, going from dentist to dentist in search of someone who can make a crown that will suit his extra-large smile.

Teeth

2000
Sud
6.8

During a hot Sunday afternoon in a small Southern Italian town, a school serving as a polling place is occupied by a group of three locals and an Eritrean immigrant, all unemployed, desperate and armed.

Sud

1993
Marrakech Express
7.3

After learning that an old friend of theirs has been arrested in Morocco on drug charges, four former college buddies set out for Marrakech to bail him out.

Marrakech Express

1989
Happy Family
6.4

A blocked screenwriter, Ezio, is trying to finish a story about two off-kilter families thrown together when their teenage children announce they’re getting married. So Ezio writes himself into the story with a romantic part—a development his characters welcome, as they’ve got some ideas of their own for bigger and better roles.

Happy Family

2010
1960
5.2

By presenting archive footage along with his own life story, filmmaker Gabriele Salvatores mediates an illustration of the economic boom in Italy during the 1960s.

1960

2010
Comedians
5.3

Six aspiring comedians tired of the mediocrity of their lives, at the end of an evening stand-up course they prepare to face their first performance in a club. In the audience there is also an examiner, who will choose one of them for a TV show. For everyone this is the great opportunity to change their life, for some it could be the last one. The performances begin and each comedian takes the stage with a great dilemma: to respect the teachings of their master, devoted to intelligent and uncompromising comedy, or to twist their numbers to satisfy the much less refined taste of the examiner? Or maybe look for a third way, one of absolute originality? Through the stories of six comedians, Comedians is a reflection on the very meaning of comedy in our time, facing absolutely topical issues.

Comedians

2021
Puerto Escondido
6.7

Targeted by a dirty cop after witnessing a murder, bank clerk Mario flees to Puerto Escondido, Mexico, where a couple of oddball Italian expats drags him into a journey of self-discovery and bad decisions.

Puerto Escondido

1992
Volare
6.6

The true story of Andrea and Franco Antonello, a father and autistic son who traveled by motorbike for three months between the United States and South America.

Volare

2019
Kamikazen (Ultima notte a Milano)
5.8

A group of comedians are trying to be successful on stage. One night an important television network organises a public variety show to sort out some performers for their programs. Every one of them will try their hardest, but just a few will be chosen.

Kamikazen (Ultima notte a Milano)

1988
Turné
6.9

Two stage actors leave on a tournée, but there's a matter to be settled: one has become the lover of the other's girlfriend and since they are very good friends, cannot bring himself to tell him.

Turné

1990
I nostri trent'anni - Generazioni a confronto
N/A

Various generations of filmmakers talk about what cinema means for them.

I nostri trent'anni - Generazioni a confronto

2004