In-Conversation with Luca Guadagnino

Luca Guadagnino won the Silver Lion for Best Director at this year’s Venice Film Festival for helping the atmospheric and delicious romantic drama Bones and All. It’s another trophy for the Italian film director to put on his mantlepiece in what has been an illustrious career. It was actually his Algerian mother who first gave Guadagnino a video camera when he was just 9-years-on. Born in Palermo, he grew up in Ethiopia and then studied literature and cinema in Rome. He made his first feature movie, the crime drama The Protagonists, starring Tilda Swinton, who would become something of a muse for the director. He followed this up with a music documentary, Mondo Civilizado, in 2003. Next was a documentary about Italian chef Paolo Masieri and the erotic thriller Melissa P. In 2009, he hit the big time with the Milan-located romantic drama I Am Love, starring Swinton. His first English-language movie, A Bigger Splash, was a riot. Guadagnino cemented his superstar status by directing Timothée Chalamet in Call Me By Your Name. He reunited Swinton and Dakota Johnson in his reimagining of Dario Argento’s Giallo classic Suspiria. The move into horror continued with his fabulous HBO series, We Are Who We Are, where he first delved into the world of cannibalism, a topic he elaborated upon in his brilliant Bones and All.