Luca Guadagnino

 ( 1971 Births ) 

Guadagnino became interested in film making from around the age of nine, and started making amateur films after receiving a Super 8 camera from his mother. He developed a passion for cinema in earnest during adolescence and programmed VHS recordings of films shown on television. Some of the films cited as his early influences include Psycho (1960), Suspiria (1977) and Starman (1984). He also developed a particular fondness for the films of Ingmar Bergman. As a teenager, Guadagnino was a registered member of the Italian Communist Party, and wrote for the Palermo youth wing newspaper. He resigned his membership after a dispute with the newspaper editor, over the content of one of his interviews.

Guadagnino studied literature at the University of Palermo. He then transferred to the Sapienza University of Rome and completed his degree in literature and cinema history, with a thesis on the American filmmaker Jonathan Demme. At Sapienza he met actress Laura Betti and would often attend her parties and cook for guests, such as Bernardo Bertolucci and Valerio Adami. Guadagnino would later describe that experience as his "film school".

In 2011, Guadagnino directed Inconscio Italiano, a feature-length documentary film presented at the Locarno Film Festival. He also worked on the documentary Bertolucci on Bertolucci (2013), which was shown at the Venice Film Festival, the London Film Festival and Paris Cinemathèque, and 50 other festivals in 2013 and 2014. Co-directed with Walter Fasano, the documentary was made from archival material and received top international accolades.

Guadagnino was a producer on the well-received short film Diarchia (2010), directed by Ferdinando Cito Filomarino and starring Guadagnino collaborator Alba Rohrwacher, the short won the Pianifica prize at the Locarno Film Festival, received a special mention at the Sundance Film Festival in 2011, was nominated for Best Short Film at the European Film Awards, and won the prize for Best Director of a Short Film at the Nastri d'Argento. Two years later he produced Edoardo Gabbriellini's feature film The Landlords, presented at the Locarno Film Festival. In 2015, Guadagnino produced Filomarino's debut feature film Antonia, a biopic about Italian poet Antonia Pozzi. Filomarino was inspired by Guadagnino's love of Pozzi's poetry to make the film.

In 2015, Guadagnino directed the second installment of the Desire Trilogy, erotic thriller A Bigger Splash, with Tilda Swinton, Matthias Schoenaerts, Ralph Fiennes and Dakota Johnson. The film is loosely based on the 1969 Jacques Deray film La Piscine. It had its premiere at the 72nd Venice Film Festival where it competed for the Golden Lion.

Guadagnino's next film was Call Me by Your Name, an adaptation of André Aciman's novel of the same name, starring Timothée Chalamet, Armie Hammer, and Michael Stuhlbarg. Filming took place in Crema, Italy, in May and June 2016, and the film debuted at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. It was theatrically released in the United Kingdom on 27 October 2017, and in the United States on 24 November.

In January 2019, it was announced Guadagnino had directed The Staggering Girl a short film, starring Julianne Moore, Kyle MacLachlan, Marthe Keller, KiKi Layne, Mia Goth and Alba Rohrwacher. The 35-minute short premiered during the 2019 Cannes Directors' Fortnight section. The following year, Guadagnino served as an executive producer on The Truffle Hunters, a documentary film directed by Michael Dweck and Gregory Kirshaw, which had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. and directed a documentary film revolving around Salvatore Ferragamo. The film had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on 5 September 2020.

He also wrote and directed We Are Who We Are an 8-episode limited series for HBO, starring Chloë Sevigny, Kid Cudi, Alice Braga, Jack Dylan Grazer, Spence Moore II, Jordan Kristine Seamon, Faith Alabi, Corey Knight, Tom Mercier, Francesca Scorsese, Ben Taylor and Sebastiano Pigazzi. It premiered on 14 September 2020. In 2021, Guadagnino served as a producer on Beckett—previously titled Born to Be Murdered—directed by Ferdinando Cito Filomarino starring Alicia Vikander and John David Washington.

On 28 January 2021, it was reported that Guadagnino was going to direct an adaptation of Camille DeAngelis's 2015 novel about teenage cannibals Bones & All, with Timothée Chalamet and Taylor Russell in talks to star. The film, Bones and All, had its world premiere at the 79th Venice International Film Festival on 2 September 2022, where it won Silver Lion for best direction. In 2023, he co-produced two Italian films and one short film, under his production company Frenesy Film Company, Margherita Giusti's The Meatseller, Pietro Castellitto's Enea and Edoardo Gabbriellini's Holiday. The three projects premiered at the 80th Venice International Film Festival and 2023 TIFF, respectively.

On 11 February 2022, he signed on to direct the sports drama film Challengers, starring Zendaya, Josh O'Connor and Mike Faist. It was filmed in Boston in 2022 and was released in the United States on April 26, 2024, being acclaimed by critics and grossing over $90 million worldwide. That same year he produced Giovanni Tortorici's Diciannove and Dea Kulumbegashvili's April. April premiered at the 81st Venice International Film Festival, where it competed for the Golden Lion. Tortorici's film also premiered at Venice in the Orizzonti section. Guadagnino's second film of the year was an adaptation of William S. Burroughs novel Queer, with Daniel Craig in the lead. Filming was completed at Cinecittà studios in Rome in June 2023. The film premiered at the 81st Venice International Film Festival, where it competed for the Golden Lion. It received generally positive reviews.

Guadagnino will next direct the thriller After the Hunt, written by Nora Garrett and starring Julia Roberts, for Amazon MGM Studios and Imagine Entertainment. Principal photography began on July 6, 2024 in London and Cambridge University. He will also serve as producer on Hailey Gates' directorial feature debut Atropia, which finished shooting in July 2023, under his Frenesy banner.

In October 2024, Guadagnino was entering final negotiations to direct a "new interpretation" of Bret Easton Ellis's 1991 novel, American Psycho, with Scott Z. Burns adapting for Lionsgate. In December of the same year, Variety reported that Austin Butler was in discussions to star as Patrick Bateman.

Outside of film, he began working with the Italian fashion house Fendi in 2005. In 2012, he created Frenesy, a creative agency and production company that conceives and implements communications for luxury brands and produces fashion films, video and print advertising, and high-profile creative events.

Guadagnino headed the jury for Louis Vuitton's Journey Awards in 2012, an international competition dedicated to young filmmakers. He also participated as a jury member in the first edition of Fashion Film Festival Milano in 2014, chaired by Franca Sozzani, chief editor of Vogue Italia. In December 2011, he made his debut as an opera director with Falstaff by Giuseppe Verdi at the Teatro Filarmonico in Verona, Italy.

Luca Guadagnino will preside over the jury of the upcoming Marrakech International Film Festival, replacing Thomas Vinterberg, who had previously been appointed president of the fest’s jury but “had to excuse himself for family reasons,” according to a festival statement.