JULY 24
GIFFONI AWARD
Biography
Photo Credit: Dirk Vogel
Officially recognised by the national press as “2017 Actress of the Year”, Valentina has had an incredible career path so far! She made her debut with Claudio Amendola’s film Il Permesso (The Furlough) and her performance immediately earned her the Biraghi Award for breakthrough actress; she then continued with the Taviani Brothers’ Una questione privata (Rainbow: A Private Affair), which was presented very successfully at the Rome Film Festival, and with Francesca Comencini’s Amori che non sanno stare al mondo (Stories of love that cannot belong to this world).
She was immediately cast in top-quality TV productions and, after the outstanding response she received in Medici: Masters of Florence, she made a name for herself among the general public as Yara in the hit TV series Sirene (Mermaids), written by Ivan Cotroneo and directed by Davide Marengo, and as Dori Ghezzi in Il principe libero (The free prince) based on Fabrizio De Andrè’s life.
FORBES included her among the 100 new Italian talents under 30 and CHANEL chose her to be the Italian face for the launch of its Gabrielle perfume.
In 2012, she began studying acting at the Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute in New York; she then came back to Italy to take the entrance exam at the Experimental Center of Cinematography (CSC) in Rome.
For about a year and a half, she managed to combine study and work, acting in films such as Renato De Maria’s La vita oscena (The obscene life), which was in competition in the Orizzonti section at the 2014 Venice Film Festival.
In 2014, she worked on the set of La Buca (Gropen) by Daniele Ciprì and in Maraviglioso Boccaccio (Wondrous Boccaccio), directed by the Taviani brothers. She then retired from the CSC and starred as the female lead in Luca Ribuoli’s TV series Grand Hotel. The following year, she played Lucrezia Tornabuoni (Lorenzo The Magnificent’s mother) in the international production Medici: Masters of Florence directed by Sergio Mimica Gezzanavendo. On this occasion, she had the opportunity to work with top actors such as Dustin Hoffman and Richard Madden.
Still in 2014, she played one of the main characters in Ivan Silvestrini’s webseries Under, which allowed Valentina to win the Best Actress award at the Roma Web Fest.
In 2015, she appeared in Ben Stiller’s film Zoolander 2.
After starring in the international TV series on Pablo Picasso (played by Antonio Banderas), in which she was the artist’s fourth and last wife, Valentina was back in cinemas together with Dustin Hoffman and Toni Servillo in Donato Carrisi’s thriller L’uomo del labirinto (Into the Labyrinth) -sold in 25 countries- and in Rodrigo Cortes’ Love gets a room. At the end of April 2021, she started filming the international series ROMULUS (SKY), in which she plays another leading role!
While waiting to see her in the second season of Matteo Oleotto’s series Volevo fare la rockstar (I wanted to be a rockstar) on Rai 2, Catch-22, a series directed (and partly produced) by George Clooney, in which Valentina stars alongside Giancarlo Giannini, is still available on demand on SKY.