The European Film Academy Welcomes Bruno Pischiutta as a Member

Filmmaker Bruno Pischiutta is an internationally celebrated and award-winning writer, director and producer with a career that spans more than five decades.

MAY 11, 2023 - ATHENS, GREECE - Global Film Studio is proud to announce that its chairman, film maestro Bruno Pischiutta, has become a member of the European Film Academy. The Academy communicated the news in Berlin, Germany on May 9, a day promoted by the European Union for celebrating peace and unity in Europe.

The European Film Academy was founded in 1989 by its first president Ingmar Bergman and 40 filmmakers, such as Federico Fellini and Bernardo Bertolucci, to advance the interests of the European film industry. Positioning itself as a leading organization, it hosts the annual European Film Awards where the best films, voted by the members of the Academy, are recognized.

“In moments like these it is necessary to think back a little to the past, to what happened in previous years,” says Bruno Pischiutta. He continues, “I was doing theatre as an actor, I played Chekhov, Shakespeare, Molière, Goldoni, Peter Weiss and many others; I was a happy young man and I was called to be an actor in cinema. I was 19 when I received the critics’ award for best supporting actor at the Venice Film Festival for the part I played in Francesco Rosi's beautiful film Uomini Contro (Many Wars Ago). That was a magnificent experience and I had the chance to act with the great Alain Cluny.

Then I continued my work in theatre and, in Milan with Nobel Prize laureate Dario Fo and Vittorio Franceschi, I was one of the founders of the Italian Political Theatre. 

After that came Rome. During the first three films I made as a director, I was lucky enough to be friends with Paolo Uccello, Domenico (Momo) Pertica and Federico Fellini who used to say that I was the best young director in Italy. In particular, Momo Pertica was my best friend; he was a journalist and the actor who played the part of the blind man in Federico’s film Amarcord. 

I met Federico for the first time in the protomoteca of the Campidoglio in Rome when Momo decided to award me with the Premio Simpatia, a prize that at the time only Fellini and Zeffirelli had received as Italian directors. Sophia Loren, Vittorio De Sica and other great personalities were the jury. The trophy I received, like all award winners, consisted of a magnificent bronze rose sculpted by Assen Peikov, the Bulgarian sculptor who was the author of the great statue of Leonardo da Vinci that is installed at the Fiumicino airport in Rome.

"What's up Bruno? How are you? What did you eat today?" I remember Federico's voice and his beautiful mind from the past…

Outside the small personal theatre I had in Ostia, a suburb of Rome, a red Ferrari was sometimes parked: it was the car of Fellini's masseur. Several people from Fellini's clan were following my activity which took place mostly in the theatre and was interesting, different.

When I shot The Comoedia, a modern version of Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy, in 1980, Italian critics compared the first scene of the film to Ingmar Bergman's way of directing films and seeing things. The scene is simple, there is a group of middle-class people following a funeral where the protagonist's soul will be buried.

I thank the Academy for welcoming me as a member! This, in my opinion, is the most important accolade I have achieved in my long career because, for me, it is personal to be recognized by those who come after Fellini, Bergman, Bertolucci and the other masters, an this is the most I can expect. I also like to thank my dear friend, fellow Academy member and great Bulgarian filmmaker Kostadin Bonev for introducing me at a very busy moment for him when he was shooting a documentary in New York and had very little time at his disposal.”

Global Film Studio is now producing Bruno Pischiutta’s highly anticipated upcoming project, tentatively entitled The Trilogy, that is touching on sensitive and very actual subjects of our time such as freedom of speech, the sexualization of children, Satanism, and pedophilia, and that is based on original screenplays written by Pischiutta. The Trilogy consists of three narrative feature length motion pictures that will be directed by Pischiutta, and three feature length documentaries that will be directed by Daria Trifu, for a total of six productions that will be filmed in London, UK and in Greece.

ABOUT THE ACADEMY

The creation of the European Film Academy was the initiative of a group of Europe’s finest filmmakers brought together on the occasion of the first European Film Award’s ceremony held in November 1988. The European Film Academy was finally founded in 1989 as the European Cinema Society by its first president Ingmar Bergman and 40 filmmakers to advance the interests of the European film industry. Wim Wenders (1996-2020) and Agnieszka Holland followed in Bergman’s footsteps as Presidents of the Academy. The current chairman of the Board is Mike Downey. Matthijs Wouter Knol is the current CEO and Director since 2021: europeanfilmacademy.org 

ABOUT BRUNO PISCHIUTTA

Bruno Pischiutta is an internationally celebrated and awarded writer, director and producer whose career spans more than five decades. He is especially noted for his socially and existentially oriented feature films. He is also known for his lifelong commitment to fostering the art of filmmaking. Pischiutta is one of the last great Italian filmmakers of his generation. During his film career, he created and developed numerous feature films in Europe, America, Africa and Asia, and won important awards in several countries: brunopischiutta.com 

ABOUT GLOBAL FILM STUDIO

Global Film Studio (globalfilmstudio.com) is a Canadian media company focused on ventures that are socially conscious and nonviolent. The company produces films and documentaries, owns the Global Nonviolent Film Festival (nonviolentfilmfestival.com), the pay-per-view streaming channel Global Cinema Online (globalcinema.online), the Global Film Actors Agency (globalfilmactors.com), and it publishes DARIA! magazine (dariamagazine.com). Global Film Studio was founded by film director Bruno Pischiutta and film producer Daria Trifu in 2011.

CONTACT: Daria Trifu at daria@globalfilmstudio.com