Valerio Zurlini

Valerio Zurlini was born on March 19, 1926. During his law studies in Rome, he started working in the theatre.

In 1943, he joined the Italian resistance. Zurlini became a member of the Italian Communist Party.

He filmed short documentaries in the immediate post-war period and in 1954 directed his first feature film, Le ragazze di San Frediano (1955), his only comedy.

Zurlini had a masterful skill for screen adaptations Both Le ragazze di San Frediano (1955) and Family Portrait (1962) were based on Vasco Pratolini's work.

In 1958, together with Leonardo Benvenuti, Piero De Bernardi and Alberto Lattuada, he won the Silver Ribbon for Best Script for Lattuada's Guendalina (1957).

Zurlini made his name as a director with his second feature film, Violent Summer (1959), starring Eleonora Rossi Drago and Jean-Louis Trintignant.

In 1961 Zurlini filmed Girl with a Suitcase (1961), a successful drama, starring Claudia Cardinale and Jacques Perrin, who would become Zurlini's favorite actor.

In 1962 Zurlini's film Family Portrait (1962) earned him the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival (it tied with Andrei Tarkovsky's Ivan's Childhood (1962)).

His 1965 film The Camp Followers (1965) was entered into the 4th Moscow International Film Festival where it won the Special Silver Prize.

Zurlini admired the work of Italian novelist Giorgio Bassani and hoped to adapt his novel "The Garden of the Finzi-Continis," which was subsequently directed by Vittorio De Sica (see The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1970)).

Zurlini's last film, Il deserto dei tartari (1976), produced by Jacques Perrin and featuring an all-star ensemble, was based on Dino Buzzati's novel of the same name. The movie won both the David di Donatello for Best Director and the Silver Ribbon for Best Director. The visual style of Zurlini's adaptations was informed by artists Giorgio De Chirico, Giorgio Morandi and Ottone Rosai.

During the last years of his life, Zurlini taught at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome and worked as a dubbing director for the Italian versions for such movies as The Deer Hunter (1978) and Mon oncle d'Amérique (1980).

The movie "Al di la dal fiume e tra gli alberi", English title "Across the River and into the Trees," directed by Valerio Zurlini, starring Burt Lancaster and Audrey Hepburn, was scheduled to being filming April 1981, but no evidence it was ever finished or released.

Member of the jury at the Venice Film Festival in 1982.