The Caiman

Giovanni (Nanni) Moretti was born in 1953 in Bolzano. Both his parents are teachers and researchers. His first passions, cinema, water-polo and political commitment mark his works and his biography. After having graduated, Moretti tries to find work as assistant-director before shooting his first Super-8 shorts. He is also an actor for the Taviani Brothers (Padre padrone). His first feature-length film Io sono un autarchico brings him success both with the critics and the public. His second (Ecce Bombo) is selected by Cannes Film Festival. The success of the film makes Moretti one of the main European new authors.

Sogni d’oro wins the Jury Prize in Venice, and after Bianca (1983), La messa è finita wins the Silver Bear at the 1985 Berlinale.
In 1987, toghether with his long-time friend Angela barbagallo, Moretti establishes his production and distribution company, Sacher Film. They will then purchase and run a theater in Rom, called Nuovo Sacher.

Some dialogs and characters of Palombella rossa (1989, Venice Critics’ Week) are known to a whole generation of Italian filmgoers. The film, with Moretti once more as his fictionary “double” Michele Apicella, is a bitter reflection about Italian politics and about a generation, in a year of major changes in Europe.

At the beginning of the 90s, Sacher Film produces Daniele Lucchetti’s Il Portaborse, in which Moretti plays a corrupted and unscrupulous cabinet member. Italian television refuses to co-finance the project.

Always close to the political situation in his country, Moretti shoots La Cosa (The Thing), a documentary about the end of the Italian Comunist Party which becomes the Democratic Party of the Left in 1989.

Moretti 7th film Caro Diario is a huge public success and is awarded in the major international film festivals.

In 1995 Moretti and other filmmakers produce the short L’unico paese al mondo in order to awaken audiences’ conscience about the possible consequences of Berlusconi’s election. That same year, Moreti produces La seconda volta cortometraggio che si propone di far riflettere sulla situazione che si verrebbe a creare nel caso l’Italia decidesse di mandare al governo Silvio Berlusconi; lo stesso anno produce Mimmo Calopresti’s La seconda volta in which he also plays together with Valeria Bruni Tedeschi.

In 1998 Nanni dedicates his Aprile to his son Pietro. In 2001, his austere and dramatic La stanza del figlio is awarded the Palme d’Or in Cannes.

Il caimano (2006), in which the filmmaker plays himself the part of Silvio Berlusconi is an enormous success which sparks off great polemics in Italy and abroad.

After 3 years dedicated to the direction of Torino Film Festival, Moretti is now preparing a new film…