Gianmarco Donaggio (b.1991) - director, cinematographer, and artist - is researching in the hybrid space between art and cinema. He is known for his experimental and atmospheric film pieces, which screened in several prestigious international film festivals, including, the Pesaro International film festival of New Cinema, the Asolo Art Film Festival, and the Athens Digital Arts Festival.
His works reflect a tension between a critical approach to the cinematic medium and a poetic use of it. Attentive observer of the role of the image in society and interested in the evolution of the cinematographic form, after several years of professional practice as cinematographer, he continued his research in philosophy of the image and visual culture. Inspired by the currents of new materialism and informal art, he experiments with a processual cinematic form, where his investigation on the matter produces deeply atmospheric audio-visual works.
Gianmarco’s films are the synthesis of careful study of audio-visual techniques and a need for experimentation, where the moving-image is often the narrative protagonist and subject of investigation.
Cinematography & Camera department - Directing
Gianmarco won multiple awards for his cinematography and directing, he is known for his experimental and artistic approach. He worked on film (8/16/35mm) and digital, across many genres in fiction and documentary; he is mostly recognised for his peculiar micro and macro cinematography for which he assembles his own optics, and for his expressive lighting approach.
Gianmarco career behind the camera starts from early age as a documentary/reportage still photographer. In 2014 he graduated with two short films shot on the first Arri Alexa at the Art University in Bournemouth. Right after graduation he started to assist in the camera and light department on international feature films and tv-series including Suburra (2015), The Snowman (2017), Occupied (2017), One Night (2018), As I Fall (2018), Stories from Norway (2018), Neste Sommer (2019), Wisting (2019). He worked with many international production companies including Working Titles (UK) , Cattleya (IT), Nordisk film (DK), Fantefilm (NO), Canal + (FR), Miso film (NO), Feelgood (NO), Motion Blur (NO), 4 1/2 (NO), NRK (NO), Ape & Bjorn (NO), Encore Film (NO), Mer film (NO), Monster (NO), Sant & Usant (NO), Pravda film (NO), Animaskin (NO).
In 2016, Gianmarco started working as a gaffer, mainly on arthouse features or creative documentaries, collaborating on works by authors including Egil Håskjold Larsen, Knut Åsdam, and Victor Kossakovsky with whom he collaborated as gaffer/grip on Gunda (2020), shortlisted for an Oscar for best documentary and nominated for best cinematography at the American Society of Cinematography.
Since 2019 Gianmarco is active as cinematographer, starting off with tv-series and feature plate units, as for instance participating in the VFX units of Seizure (2019) and The Crossing (2020). He also shot intro sequences for Tv2 (NO), music videos, short documentaries, and experimental films.
His career as a film-author begins in 2018, when he started to write/direct/shoot his films, including Nå (2018) and Ice cream for you (2020), supported by the Norwegian cultural fund. In 2020/21 he produced five films: Q di Q, Milano di Carta, Manifestarsi, Aria di Attesa, and The Sleepwalker. In this series of short films he investigates his subjects from a peculiar perspective. Through moving-images, he explores the matter by juxtaposing it amongst different dimensional scales and perspectives. The aim is to analyse the subject as a whole and as an assemblage, in the form of cinematic atmosphere.