Bloodstained Shadow

I was born in Villa del Conte (just outside Padua) on January 8th 1949. They tell me I’m a typical Capricorn but I’ve never been all that interested in astrology. I spent my early years in the country and then my family (my parents and three sisters) moved to Padua where I lived until I was 25.

My high school years and those at university were what you might call “the best years of my life”: lively, undisciplined, carefree and creative. In fact I studied precious little (I did eventually get a degree in Letters -with a thesis on the Italian horror film – but twenty years later!). To make up for this I spent a vast amount of time on photography, filming, going to the cinema and listening to music. Right from the start I was determined to be a film director and I became one. Even today I don’t know what other career I could have taken up. Since 1974 I’ve lived in Rome with Marisa Andalò, my companion in school and now my companion in life. Together with my wife I’ve written scripts for “Solamente nero” (“The Bloodstained Shadow”), “Barcamenandoci” and many other subjects for the cinema, and also texts for documentaries, proposals for television commercials etc.

Many of these were accepted and many more not. With Marisa I’ve also dreamed of doing something really important, significant, beautiful, useful (call it what you like!) for the cinema and that dream is still there, a bit like a faded photo but always ready to burst into glorious colour. In 2004 we finished writing the script for a film noir and I know that this is the movie I want to make at this moment in time. And I’m going to do it one way or the other. Now, for those of you who want to find out some more about me I thought I would “illuminate” you (and me) and include in this blanket term a list of memories, anecdotes and bits of this and that, which will serve to help me in writing my life story (so far) and, I hope, also you who have the interest and the patience to read it. —antoniobido.it