Francesco Puppini

Film writer/director Francesco Puppini was born and raised in Milan. A graduate from the Northern Film School, he was appointed as a digital creative on the talent programme for the online relaunch of BBC Three. His short film "Some Body" was nominated for the Audience Award at Leeds International Film Festival and won the Best Student Award at Screen.Dance in Scotland. "Virginia", a short drama about a difficult relationship between mother and son, won the BFI Future Film Lab Award, the ARRI Best Cinematography Award, the MYllennium Award and the NFFTY Special Achievement Award for Best Acting, alongside other nominations, such as Best Director and Best International Short. The short screened internationally at film festivals. Francesco was then selected for a specialist workshop run by director Cristian Mungiu and was part of New Arrivals: Go Short Campus in Nijmegen, where he started developing his new short film project titled "Tutti Uccidono" for which he was later awarded the top prize at ShorTS Pitching Training 2020, also pitched at Lovers Goes Industry 2022. In 2020, he signed a contract with the Italian production company dispàrte, which committed to producing the short film. Crossing boundaries between fact and fiction, Francesco approached video art for theatre at LAC Lugano Arte e Cultura. His work screened at La Biennale di Venezia 2020. In 2021, he participated in the writing programme Luminanza - Reattore per la drammaturgia contemporanea svizzera di lingua italiana and met several authors from the Swiss and Italian panorama, and wrote his first dramaturgy titled "Evocazione". The text was read at Studio Foce in Lugano during FIT - Festival Internazionale del Teatro e della Scena Contemporanea and at the finissage of the exhibition on A.R. Penck at the Museo d’Arte di Mendrisio. In 2022, he participated in the Cenacolo del Monte Verità during the festival Eventi Letterari in Ascona (Locarno), where he read his screenplay "Two Strangers" under the mentorship of writer Matteo Terzaghi. Then, he enrolled at Scuola Holden for his master’s studies. He followed the master for one year under the mentorship of Eshkol Nevo, but eventually decided to drop out. In 2023, he contributed to a live writing performance at La Straordinaria - Tour Vagabonde in Lugano and at Territori Festival in Bellinzona. In 2024, he was chosen to participate in a workshop led by Tim Crouch at La Biennale College Teatro. Coming back to the film industry, he was selected for the film directing workshop conducted by Marco Bellocchio, and he worked with actors Fausto Russo Alesi and Pia Lanciotti. Afterwards, he shot his short film "Tutti Uccidono", which premiered in 2024 at the Rome Independent Film Festival and afterwards went to Longtake Film Festival in Milan. In 2025, the short film was also selected for other festivals, such as Lovers Film Festival, Appuntamentoinnero, Marateale, Cervino Cine Mountain, Monza Film Fest, accordi@disaccordi, COrto Botanico and many more screenings, including one at Il Cinemino in Milan. In December 2025, the film won the Paila Pavese Award for Best Supporting Actress in a short film at the MiraBan UK Film Awards in London.