Gianfranco Serraino

Born in Sicily. Since childhood, he has shown a definite inclination for writing, music and later also for photography. After a diploma in classical studies and another at the local music conservatory, he moved to Milan where after having quit the Faculty of Engineering, he decided to follow his artistic nature. He graduated at film school and was immediately chosen as second second assistant director in the high budget television series "La Piovra 6" starring Vittorio Mezzogiorno. After that he worked in advertising where he developed a remarkable technical ability. Finally, he decided that it was time to tackle content rather than technique, so he left advertising to work as a writer and follow a career as documentarian. As a Sicilian, he felt the need to contribute to spreading a more positive and less stereotypical image of his homeland. His first documentary "Forti i paleddi" received the plaudits of public and critics alike and won prizes in various national and international festivals (Toulon, Verviers). Serraino has been defined one of the most interesting emerging documentarians on the international scene. He continued with the production of other documentaries, "La vara", "il velo di lava" and "Images: journey through Sicily" experimenting with multimedia on this occasion. This brings him to the attention of French producer Emanuel Chouraqui, founder of Beamlight, with whom be began to collaborate. In 2000, Serraino moved to Paris where, between 2001 and 2003, he directed two series of documentaries: "Les metiers dans the shades" and "Profession producteur", in which he appears as co-director ("conception and realisation visuelle") produced in collaboration with TPS Cinema. During his stay in Paris, he made frequent trips to London where he had already had in the past worked with many people. Meanwhile his writing ability improved to the point that known scriptwriter friends suggested he devoted himself entirely to a collection of short stories entitled TR-IO. Serraino moved back to Italy and began to write his first screen-play "The bridge to nowhere" from an idea he had in 1998. In between times he directed and produced another documentary, "Sicilia: colour, tradition and passion" and had the privilege to be selected to conceive and direct what he calls a docu-clip for His Holiness Giovanni Paul II entitled "No More Terrorism, No more War" to inspire peace among religions."Solo", a screen-play drawn from one of his short stories has received a lot of interest and it has become the source of development of a feature film script. Now Serraino is one of the very few international Italian scriptwriters / directors. "Soul Market" and "Water Project" (working title) are two other scripts that Serraino is developing for the international market.