Akademik

(1972-)

   Screenwriter and director. One of the most promising of the younger generation of contemporary Italian filmmakers, Marra studied law and worked as a sports photographer before beginning to make short films in 1998. After working as assistant to Mario Martone on Teatri di guerra (Rehearsals for War, 1998), and with Chilean Italian director Marco Bechis on Garage Olimpo (1999), a film that highlighted the use of torture during the Argentinian regime, Marra directed his own first feature, Tornando a casa (Sailing Home, 2001). A complex drama about Neapolitan fishermen forced by necessity into illegal activities, the film was screened to great acclaim at a host of festivals, including the Venice, where it was awarded the first prize for a debut feature. There followed the feature-length documentary Estanei alla massa (Separate from the Rest, 2002), which closely observed the daily lives of seven fanatical Neapolitan soccer fans, and a shorter documentary on Sicily, Paesaggio a sud (2003), before Marra's similarly acclaimed second feature, Vento di terra (Land Wind, 2004). The moving but unsentimental story of a young Neapolitan boy who becomes ill through exposure to depleted uranium while on voluntary military service in Kosovo, the film won both the International Film Critics Prize and the Pasinetti Award for most innovative film. Marra's most recent work is L'udienza e aperta (The Session Is Open, 2006), a full-length documentary on the trial of members of the camorra in Naples.

   Historical Dictionary of Italian Cinema by Alberto Mira