Luca Guadagnino

Luca Guadagnino
Luca Guadagnino at the 2017 Berlin Film Festival
Born	1971 (age 45–46) Palermo, Italy
Nationality	Italian
Occupation	film director, screenwriter
Years active	1997–present

Luca Guadagnino (born 1971) is an Italian film director. He first won recognition with the 2005 film Melissa P.. He has collaborated several times with Tilda Swinton, including the films The Protagonists (1999), I Am Love (2010), A Bigger Splash (2015) and the upcoming Suspiria (2017). He also directed Call Me by Your Name (2017).

Born in Palermo, Italy, in 1971, to a Sicilian father and an Algerian mother, Guadagnino spent his early childhood in Ethiopia, where his father taught history and Italian. He first studied literature at the University of Palermo and graduated from Rome’s University La Sapienza, in the faculty of History and Critics of Cinema, with a thesis on American film director Jonathan Demme.

Guadagnino made his directorial debut with the feature film The Protagonists (1999), which was presented at the Venice Film Festival. In 2002, he directed Mundo Civilizado, presented at the Locarno Film Festival in 2003. His 2004 film Cuoco Contadino was presented at the Venice Film Festival, and Melissa P. made a successful debut the following year.

In 2009 he directed, wrote, and produced the cult hit I Am Love ("Io Sono L’Amore"). Presented at the Venice Film Festival, the Berlin Film Festival, the Busan (South Korea) Film Festival and Sundance Film Festival, the film was an immediate success with critics and audiences. In 2010, it was a candidate for the Academy Awards for Best Costume Design, the Golden Globes and the BAFTA nominations for Best Foreign Language film.