Renato Castellani

Renato Castellani 4 September 1913 28 December 1985 was an Italian film director and screenwriter Son of a representative of Kodak he was born in Varigotti at the time a hamlet of Final Pia which became Finale Ligure Savona in 1927 where his mother had returned from Argentina to give birth to his son He spent his childhood in Argentina in the city of Rosario After 12 years he returned to Liguria and resumed his studies in Genoa He moved to Milan where he graduated from the Polytechnic University in architecture In Milan he met Livio Castiglioni and together they aired for GUF Fascist University Group Lora radiofonica and La fontana malata by Aldo Palazzeschi experimenting with new techniques for sound editing on radio He began collaborating in 1936 as a military consultant for The Great Appeal a film by Mario Camerini He worked as a film critic and worked as a screenwriter or assistant director with important names of the Italian cinema of the time such as Augusto Genina with whom he signed the script for Castles in the air 1939 by Mario Soldati of which he was assistant director on the set of Malombra 1942 He then worked with the director Alessandro Blasetti signing the screenplays of his movies An Adventure of Salvator Rosa 1939 The Iron Crown 1941 Four Steps in the Clouds 1942 and with the director Camillo Mastrocinque signing the screenplay of The Cuckoo Clock 1938 His first work as a director was A Pistol Shot 1942 based on a story by Aleksandr Puskin in which Alberto Moravia also took part in the screenplay with Fosco Giachetti and Assia Noris This movie as well as the subsequent Zazà 1942 fit into the caligraphism genre With Under the Sun of Rome 1948 Its Forever Springtime 1950 both shot outdoors with nonprofessional actors and especially Two Cents Worth of Hope 1952 Castellani gave rise to a new genre defined as pink neorealism considered by critics at the time as the downward trend of neorealism but destined to a vast audience success With Two Cents Worth of Hope he won the ex aequo Grand Prix at the 1952 Cannes Film Festival With Romeo and Juliet 1954 he won the Golden Lion at the 1954 Venice Film Festival After some other significant films such as Dreams in a Drawer 1957 and The Brigand 1961 Castellani devoted himself mainly to biopics in episodes shot for television widely followed such as The Life of Leonardo da Vinci 1971 and The Life of Verdi 1982