Gianfranco Rosi (director)

Gianfranco Rosi is an Italian director, cinematographer, producer and screenwriter. His film Sacro GRA won Golden Lion at 70th Venice International Film Festival. Sacro GRA is the first documentary film to win Golden Lion in history of the Venice film festival and the first Italian film to win in fifteen years, after Gianni Amelio's The Way We Laughed won the award in 1998. His 2016 film Fire at Sea, a documentary focused on European migrant crisis on the Sicilan island of Lampedusa, won the Golden Bear at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival. Rosi is the only documentary filmmaker to win two top prizes at major European film festivals (Cannes, Berlin and Venice) and is currently the only filmmaker besides Michael Haneke and Ken Loach to win two top European festival prizes in the 21st century.

Rosi was born in 1964 in Asmara, Eritrea; during the Eritrean War of Independence, at just 13 years old, he was carried to safety in Italy in a military plane, leaving his parents in Eritrea. After living as a youth at Rome and Istanbul, at 20 Rosi moved to New York City to attend the New York University Film School.