JULY 21st
BIOGRAPHY
Paolo Genovese was born in Rome in 1966, after graduating in economics he went on to work in advertising: he has directed over three hundred commercials winning many awards in Italy and Abroad. In 2003 he was elected as best commercials director of the year by a specialized jury appointed by advertising magazines.
He started working together with Luca Miniero, with whom he wrote and directed Incantesimo Napoletano (2002), which was awarded two David di Donatello and two Globi d'oro, Nessun messaggio in segreteria (2005) with Carlo Delle Piane, Pierfrancesco Favino and Valerio Mastandrea and Questa notte è ancora nostra, with Nicolas Vaporidis. In 2005 he directed a TV series Nati Ieri starring Sebastiano Somma and Vittoria Belvedere, while the following year he worked with Luca Miniero on Viaggio in Italia, an experiment of a film divided into 20 small episodes aired during Talk Show Ballarò, on Raitre. In 2008, he directed Amiche mie, a miniseries with Margherita Buy, Elena Sofia Ricci, Luisa Ranieri and Cecilia Dazzi.
In 2010 he directed popular Italian comedy trio Aldo, Giovanni and Giacomo in La banda dei babbi natale. The following year he directed Immaturi, a brilliant comedy starring Raoul Bova, Ricky Memphis, Luca Bizzarri, Ambra Angiolini, Anita Caprioli and Luisa Ranieri, followed by the next installment Immaturi - Il viaggio. In 2013 he directed Sergio Castellitto who played a strong businessman who hires a bunch of actors pretending he has a family on Christmas Eve in Una famiglia perfetta. The film won the Ciak d'oro for best comedy and many international awards and received many David di Donatello, Nastri d'Argento and Globi d'oro nominations. After writing the screenplay for Un fantastico via vai, directed by Leonardo Pieraccioni, in 2014 he directed the comedy Tutta colpa di Freud, with Anna Foglietta, Vittoria Puccini, Claudia Gerini, Alessandro Gassmann and Gian Marco Tognazzi. After writing and directing Sei mai stata sulla luna? last year, starring Raoul Bova and Sabrina Impacciatore, he wrote and directed the box office and critics success, Perfetti sconosciuti/If Mobiles Could Speak (2016, a bitter ensemble comedy about friendship, love and cheating), which won the Best Screenplay Award at the 2016 David di Donatello Awards and the 2016 Ciak d’Oro, the latter together with Lo chiamavano Jeeg Robot/They call me Jeeg.