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Luca Guadagnino
Photo: Raph_PH, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons12

Luca Guadagnino

Italian filmmaker (born 1971)

Luca Guadagnino (Italian: [ˈluːka ɡwadaɲˈɲiːno]; born 10 August 1971) is an Italian film director and producer. His films are characterized by their emotional complexity, eroticism, and lavish visuals.2

From Wikipedia’s article on Luca Guadagnino (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.

Born Aug 10, 1971.1

About

Guadagnino has received numerous accolades, including a Silver Lion and an Independent Spirit Award, alongside nominations for an Academy Award, three Golden Globes, and three BAFTAs.

Born in Palermo to an Algerian mother and a Sicilian father, Guadagnino spent part of his childhood in Ethiopia, but the family moved back to Italy to escape the Ethiopian Civil War. Guadagnino began his career directing short films and documentaries. He made his feature-film debut with The Protagonists (1999), the first of his many collaborations with actress Tilda Swinton. His follow-up Melissa P. (2005) was a commercial success in Italy but was met with mixed critical reception.

Guadagnino gained further acclaim with his Desire trilogy, which consists of the films I Am Love (2009), A Bigger Splash (2015), and Call Me by Your Name (2017). The latter brought him international recognition. Suspiria (2018), a remake of the 1977 film, was Guadagnino's first foray into the horror genre. It was a box office failure and polarized critics. Guadagnino made his television debut with the HBO coming-of-age miniseries We Are Who We Are (2020). He directed the romantic horror film Bones and All (2022), the romantic sports film Challengers (2024), the period romantic drama Queer (2024), and the psychological thriller After the Hunt (2025).

Guadagnino directed several documentaries including Salvatore: The Shoemaker of Dreams (2020) and Joie de vivre (2026). Aside from filmmaking, he has been involved in the world of fashion, directing advertisements for brands like Fendi and Salvatore Ferragamo. In 2012, Guadagnino founded the production company Frenesy Film Company. He also produced Belluscone: A Sicilian Story (2014), The Truffle Hunters (2020), Holiday (2023), and Enea (2023).

From Wikipedia’s article on Luca Guadagnino, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2

Companies

Early life and education

  • Date not recordedSapienza University of Rome3
  • Date not recordedUniversity of Palermo3

Guadagnino was born on 10 August 1971 in Palermo, Sicily. His Algerian mother grew up in Casablanca, Morocco, and his Italian father was from Canicattì, Sicily. Guadagnino spent his early childhood in Ethiopia, where his father taught history and Italian literature at a technical school in Addis Ababa. The family left Ethiopia for Italy in 1977 to escape the Ethiopian Civil War and settled back in Palermo.

Guadagnino became interested in film making from around the age of nine, and started making amateur films after receiving a Super 8 camera from his mother. He developed a passion for cinema in earnest during adolescence and programmed VHS recordings of films shown on television. Some of the films cited as his early influences include Psycho (1960), Suspiria (1977) and Starman (1984). He also developed a particular fondness for the films of Ingmar Bergman. As a teenager, Guadagnino was a registered member of the Italian Communist Party, and wrote for the Palermo youth wing newspaper. He resigned his membership after a dispute with the newspaper editor, over the content of one of his interviews.

Guadagnino studied literature at the University of Palermo. He then transferred to the Sapienza University of Rome and completed his degree in literature and cinema history, with a thesis on the American filmmaker Jonathan Demme. At Sapienza he met actress Laura Betti and would often attend her parties and cook for guests, such as Bernardo Bertolucci and Valerio Adami. Guadagnino would later describe that experience as his "film school".

From Wikipedia’s article on Luca Guadagnino (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.

Career

Occupation: director, screenwriter, film producer, film director.5

Early work (1999–2008)

Guadagnino made his directorial debut with the feature film The Protagonists (1999), which was presented at the Venice Film Festival. The film also marks his first collaboration with actresses Tilda Swinton, Fabrizia Sacchi, and editor Walter Fasano. In 2002, he directed Mundo Civilizado, a musical documentary, presented at the Locarno Film Festival in 2003. His 2004 documentary film Cuoco contadino, which follows Italian chef Paolo Masieri, was presented at the Venice Film Festival. His second feature film, erotic drama Melissa P. starring Spanish actress María Valverde, made a successful debut the following year.

Desire trilogy and other work (2009–2017)

In 2009, he directed, wrote, and produced the cult hit I Am Love. The first installment in Guadagnino's self-described Desire trilogy, was co-produced, and developed by Tilda Swinton—who also stars in the film—over a 7-year period. Presented at a number of international festivals, the film was an immediate success with critics and audiences alike. In 2010, it was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Costume Design, the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film, and the BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language.

In 2011, Guadagnino directed Inconscio Italiano, a feature-length documentary film presented at the Locarno Film Festival. He also worked on the documentary Bertolucci on Bertolucci (2013), which was shown at the Venice Film Festival, the London Film Festival and Paris Cinemathèque, and 50 other festivals in 2013 and 2014. Co-directed with Walter Fasano, the documentary was made from archival material and received top international accolades.

Guadagnino was a producer on the well-received short film Diarchia (2010), directed by Ferdinando Cito Filomarino and starring Guadagnino collaborator Alba Rohrwacher, the short won the Pianifica prize at the Locarno Film Festival, received a special mention at the Sundance Film Festival in 2011, was nominated for Best Short Film at the European Film Awards, and won the prize for Best Director of a Short Film at the Nastri d'Argento. Two years later he produced Edoardo Gabbriellini's feature film The Landlords, presented at the Locarno Film Festival. In 2015, Guadagnino produced Filomarino's debut feature film Antonia, a biopic about Italian poet Antonia Pozzi. Filomarino was inspired by Guadagnino's love of Pozzi's poetry to make the film.

In 2015, Guadagnino directed the second installment of the Desire Trilogy, erotic thriller A Bigger Splash, with Tilda Swinton, Matthias Schoenaerts, Ralph Fiennes and Dakota Johnson. The film is loosely based on the 1969 Jacques Deray film La Piscine. It had its premiere at the 72nd Venice Film Festival where it competed for the Golden Lion.

Guadagnino's next film was Call Me by Your Name, an adaptation of André Aciman's novel of the same name, starring Timothée Chalamet, Armie Hammer, and Michael Stuhlbarg. Filming took place in Crema, Italy, in May and June 2016, and the film debuted at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. It was theatrically released in the United Kingdom on 27 October 2017, and in the United States on 24 November.

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International recognition (2017–present)

In September 2015, Guadagnino announced at the 72nd Venice Film Festival his plans to direct a remake of Dario Argento's Suspiria. Guadagnino set his version in Berlin circa 1977—the year in which the original film was released—and aimed to focus on "the concept [and...] uncompromising force of motherhood." Tilda Swinton and Dakota Johnson starred in the film, reuniting from Guadagnino's A Bigger Splash. Shooting began in Italy in October 2016, and concluded on 10 March 2017, in Berlin. Suspiria premiered at the 75th Venice Film Festival and polarized critics.

In January 2019, it was announced Guadagnino had directed The Staggering Girl, a short film starring Julianne Moore, Kyle MacLachlan, Marthe Keller, KiKi Layne, Mia Goth and Alba Rohrwacher. The 35-minute short premiered during the 2019 Cannes Directors' Fortnight section. The following year, Guadagnino served as an executive producer on The Truffle Hunters, a documentary film directed by Michael Dweck and Gregory Kirshaw, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. and directed Salvatore Ferragamo: The Shoemaker of Dreams a documentary film revolving around Salvatore Ferragamo. The film had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on 5 September 2020.

He also wrote and directed We Are Who We Are an 8-episode limited series for HBO, starring Chloë Sevigny, Kid Cudi, Alice Braga, Jack Dylan Grazer, Spence Moore II, Jordan Kristine Seamon, Faith Alabi, Corey Knight, Tom Mercier, Francesca Scorsese, Ben Taylor and Sebastiano Pigazzi. It premiered on 14 September 2020. In 2021, Guadagnino served as a producer on Beckett—previously titled Born to Be Murdered—directed by Ferdinando Cito Filomarino starring Alicia Vikander and John David Washington.

On 28 January 2021, it was reported that Guadagnino was going to direct an adaptation of Camille DeAngelis's 2015 novel about teenage cannibals Bones & All, with Timothée Chalamet and Taylor Russell in talks to star. The film, Bones and All, had its world premiere at the 79th Venice International Film Festival on 2 September 2022, where it won Silver Lion for best direction. In 2023, he co-produced two Italian films and one short film, under his production company Frenesy Film Company: Margherita Giusti's The Meatseller, Pietro Castellitto's Enea and Edoardo Gabbriellini's Holiday. The three projects premiered at the 80th Venice International Film Festival and 2023 TIFF, respectively.

On 11 February 2022, he signed on to direct the sports drama film Challengers, starring Zendaya, Josh O'Connor and Mike Faist. It was filmed in Boston in 2022 and was released in the United States on April 26, 2024, being acclaimed by critics and grossing over $90 million worldwide. That same year he produced Giovanni Tortorici's Diciannove and Dea Kulumbegashvili's April. April premiered at the 81st Venice International Film Festival, where it competed for the Golden Lion. Tortorici's film also premiered at Venice in the Orizzonti section. Guadagnino's second film of the year was an adaptation of William S. Burroughs novel Queer, with Daniel Craig in the lead. The film is set in 1950s Mexico City and Ecuador and follows an outcast American expatriate (Craig) who becomes infatuated with a much younger man (Drew Starkey). Filming was completed at Cinecittà studios in Rome in June 2023. The film premiered at the 81st Venice International Film Festival, where it competed for the Golden Lion. It received generally positive reviews.

Guadagnino's ext film was a thriller called After the Hunt, written by Nora Garrett and starring Julia Roberts, Andrew Garfield, Ayo Edebiri, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Chloë Sevigny. The film was made by Amazon MGM Studios and Imagine Entertainment. Principal photography took place between July and August 2024 in London and Cambridge University. The film premiered out of competition in the 82nd Venice International Film Festival and received mixed reviews. The film was released on October 10, 2025 and bombed at the box office, grossing $9.5 million on a $70–80 million production budget. He also served as producer on Hailey Gates' directorial feature debut Atropia, which finished shooting in July 2023, under his Frenesy banner.

By early 2025, Guadagnino was confirmed as the director of Artificial, written by Simon Rich and based on the brief dismissal of Sam Altman as CEO of OpenAI, a move led by Ilya Sutskever. Principal photography took place between July and October 2025 in Italy, with a theatrical release planned for 2026. It will star Andrew Garfield, Yura Borisov, Cooper Koch, Ike Barinholtz, Cooper Hoffman, Jason Schwartzman and Monica Barbaro. Amazon MGM Studios was originally attached to distribute the film worldwide, marking their fifth collaboration with Guadagnino (following Suspiria, Bones and All, Challengers, and After the Hunt). By mid-2026, the film was dropped by Amazon for unspecified reasons, but the move received scrutiny for happening a few days after Amazon signed a $50 billion deal with OpenAI. Shortly after, producers began shopping the film to other distributors while the film was in the last stages of post-production. Initially facing rejection from several major studios, worldwide distribution rights were ultimately picked up by Neon, which will release the film on December 25th, 2026.

Prospective projects

Guadagnino was attached to direct multiple projects including a biographical film about Hollywood hustler Scotty Bowers, and an adaptation of Lord of the Flies, with Patrick Ness adapting the book for Warner Bros. In March 2024, Guadagnino told la Repubblica his next project would be Separate Rooms, a film adaptation of Pier Vittorio Tondelli's 1989's novel, Camere separate. Variety reported Josh O'Connor was in talks to star. By early 2025, O'Connor revealed he was no longer attached to star in it.

In May 2020, it was announced that Guadagnino would direct a new adaptation of Scarface, with the screenplay written by Joel and Ethan Coen. In November 2023, Guadagnino announced he was no longer attached to direct.

In October 2024, Guadagnino was entering final negotiations to direct a "new interpretation" of Bret Easton Ellis's 1991 novel, American Psycho, with Scott Z. Burns adapting for Lionsgate. In December of the same year, Variety reported that Austin Butler was in discussions to star as Patrick Bateman.

Other activities

Guadagnino has served twice on the jury of the Torino Film Festival: in 2003 for the short film section and in 2006 for the official jury. In 2010, he was a member of the Venice Film Festival. In 2011, he served as president of the Beirut Film Festival, and on the jury of the Locarno Film Festival.

Outside of film, he began working with the Italian fashion house Fendi in 2005. In 2012, he created Frenesy Film Company, a creative agency and production company that conceives and implements communications for luxury brands and produces fashion films, video and print advertising, and high-profile creative events.

Guadagnino served as a gastronomic critic for Vanity Fair Italia for several years, writing over sixty reviews for the magazine.

Guadagnino headed the jury for Louis Vuitton's Journey Awards in 2012, an international competition dedicated to young filmmakers. He also participated as a jury member in the first edition of Fashion Film Festival Milano in 2014, chaired by Franca Sozzani, chief editor of Vogue Italia. In December 2011, he made his debut as an opera director with Falstaff by Giuseppe Verdi at the Teatro Filarmonico in Verona, Italy.

Luca Guadagnino will preside over the jury of the upcoming Marrakech International Film Festival, replacing Thomas Vinterberg, who had previously been appointed president of the fest’s jury but “had to excuse himself for family reasons,” according to a festival statement.

From Wikipedia’s article on Luca Guadagnino (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.

Personal life

  • BornAug 10, 1971, Palermo6
  • CitizenshipItaly7

Guadagnino lived and worked in a 17th-century palazzo in Crema. He no longer lives in Crema, citing a lack of privacy due to the success of Call Me By Your Name. As of 2024, he lives in Milan. From 2009 to 2020, he was in a relationship with Ferdinando Cito Filomarino. In a 2026 interview with Vulture, Guadagnino revealed that he is married.

From Wikipedia’s article on Luca Guadagnino (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.

Awards

  • 2019David di Donatello for Adapted Screenplay for Call Me by Your Name8

Sources

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