Giuseppe Avati, better known as Pupi Avati (born 3 November 1938), is an Italian film director, producer and screenwriter.
Pupi Avati was born in Bologna in 1938. After attending the faculty of Political Science at the University of Bologna, he started working in a frozen food company. At the same time he developed a passion for jazz, becoming an amateur musician as a clarinetist. In the second half of the 1950s he formed and played in the Doctor Dixie Jazz Band, which saw also Lucio Dalla as member.
He intended to pursue a professional career as a musician but, after realising that he was not talented enough, in the mid 1960s he decided to dedicate himself to cinema, his other love, after seeing Federico Fellini’s 8½ and its portrait of the role of a director.
His ambitions and passion for music will be however a recurrent theme of his production, as well as the love for his hometown, where he set many of his movies.
His production as a director includes almost forty movies and television works. As a screenwriter, Avati wrote or co-authored the majority of his movies, as well as screenplays for other directors. To be mentioned is his cooperation to the script of Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma (Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, 1976) directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini, even if he is uncredited for that. He produced also several films, either his own or for other directors. Many of his movies are produced by his brother Antonio.
Avati began his career directing horror films and he is considered one of the most notable Italian directors of this genre. La casa dalle finestre che ridono (The House with Laughing Windows, 1976) and Zeder (1983) are considered his masterpieces.
According to Avati, the TV series Jazz Band (1978) about the story of the Doctor Dixie Jazz Band marked a turning point for his work: the subject of his movies began coming from his own experience and his cinema became more nostalgic, introspective and autobiographic. Moreover, the series was successful and brought Avati to the attention to a wider public compared to his previous films.
Throughout his whole career Avati directed successfully any genre of film: horrors, medieval period pieces, dramas, jazz comedies, buddy comedies, biopic and others, proving himself as one of the most versatile directors.
During his career as director, screenwriter and producer, Avati was nominated for Golden Palm, Silver Ribbons, David di Donatello Awards and many others. He won two David di Donatello Awards and five Silver Ribbons.
Avati was nominated Commendatore Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana on 2 June 1995.
He presides the Federico Fellini Foundation, born in 1995 in memory of the great director of Rimini.
In 2008 Avati published his autobiography Sotto le stelle di un film, edited by Il Margine. Inspired by the autobiography of the director, in 2010 Claudio Costa made a documentary film of interviews and animations, called Pupi Avati, ieri oggi domani (Pupi Avati, yesterday today tomorrow).
He started his career in the movies with two grotesque comical horror movies with surreal plots: Balsamus, l’uomo di Satana (Blood Relations) in 1968, one of the few films whose screenplay was not written by him, followed a year later by Thomas e gli indemoniati (Thomas and the Bewitched, 1969), never released in Italy.
In 1974, Avati made the bizarre La mazurka del barone, della santa e del fico fiorone (The Mazurka of the Baron, the Saint and the Early Fig Tree), a movie with an almost fairy tale-like atmosphere in a style reminiscent of the movies of Federico Fellini, and in 1975 the musical fantasy Bordella (House of Pleasure for Women), which caused a commotion resulting in some censorship.
In 1976, Avati directed the horror film La casa dalle finestre che ridono, set in the Po Valley in Emilia–Romagna, appreciated by lovers of this genre. This movie was followed by Tutti defunti… tranne i morti (1977), a black comedy with a similar theme but written in a parodistic, farcical way.
Avati directed also several films and series for the television: the mentioned Jazz Band is broadcasted on RAI TV in 1978, followed by Cinema!!! in 1979 and by the works Dancing Paradise in 1982, Accadde a Bologna in 1983 and È proibito ballare in 1989.
In 1980, he writes the screenplay for Macabro (Frozen Terror, or Macabre), the first movie directed by Lamberto Bava, produced by Pupi Avati himself.
In 1983, Avati first directed the comedy Una gita scolastica (A School Outing) and then another thriller-horror, Zeder, considered one of his best films of this kind. After Impiegati (1984), he made Regalo di Natale (Christmas Present, 1986), starring Diego Abatantuono in his first dramatic role. The sequel of this film was released in 2004 and titled Rivincita di Natale (Christmas Rematch).
His career continued with Storia di ragazzi e di ragazze (The Story of Boys and Girls, 1989), awarded with the Nastro d’Argento for Best Director and Script in 1990, the biopic Bix (1991), Magnificat (1993), the thriller L’amico d’infanzia (The Childhood Friend, 1994) and the horror L’arcano incantatore (The Mysterious Enchanter, 1996) with Stefano Dionisi.
In 1995, he wrote the screenplay of the RAI TV miniseries Voci notturne directed by Fabrizio Laurenti.
In 1998, Avati filmed Il testimone dello sposo (The Best Man), in 1999 La via degli angeli (A Midsummer Night’s Dance) and in 2001 I cavalieri che fecero l’impresa (The Knights of the Quest). In 2003, he directed the sentimental comedy Il cuore altrove (The Heart Is Elsewhere) with Neri Marcorè and Vanessa Incontrada in the role of a young blind lady. The film was nominated for Golden Palm at Cannes Film Festival and he received the David di Donatello Award as Best Director.
In 2005, he directed Vittoria Puccini, Paolo Briguglia and Claudio Santamaria in the romantic comedy Ma quando arrivano le ragazze?, and Antonio Albanese, Katia Ricciarelli and again Neri Marcorè in La seconda notte di nozze. In 2007, Diego Abatantuono, Francesca Neri, Ines Sastre, Vanessa Incontrada and Violante Placido acted in Avati’s film La cena per farli conoscere while Laura Morante acted as an Italian woman who takes over a disturbing building in Davenport, Iowa, in the horror Il nascondiglio (The Hideout).
In 2008, Avati directed Il papà di Giovanna (Giovanna’s Father), followed by Gli amici del bar Margherita (The Friends at Margherita Café) in 2009, Il figlio più piccolo in 2010 and Una sconfinata giovinezza in 2011. —Wikipedia
