FERRETTI, DANTE

(1943-)

Art director and production designer. One of Italy's most nationally respected and internationally renowned designers, Ferretti graduated in architecture from the University of Rome before embarking on a career in the cinema. Still in his early 20s, he began working as an assistant designer onPier Paolo Pasolini'sIl Vangelo secondo Matteo(The Gospel According to St.Matthew, 1964) andUccellacci e uccellini(Hawks and Sparrows, 1966) before becoming the principal production designer forMedea(1969) and for all of Pasolini's subsequent films. In the following years he worked with many of the other major Italian directors, includingElio Petri,Luigi Comencini, andMarco Ferreri. In 1978 he initiated a very fruitful collaboration withFederico Felliniby creating the sets forProva d'orchestra(Orchestra Rehearsal) and thereafter designed all of Fellini's films. With his national reputation firmly established, in the 1980s he also began to work internationally and received aDavid di Donatellofor his design of Jean-Jacques Annaud'sThe Name of the Rose(1986) and Oscar nominations for his work on Terry Gilliam'sThe Adventures of Baron Munchausen(1988) andFranco Zeffirelli'sHamlet(1990). In the 1990s he worked regularly as art director and production designer for Martin Scorsese and received Oscar nominations for his work on Scorsese'sAge of Innocence(1994),Kundun(1997), andGangs of New York(2002). In 2004, having already been nominated for an Academy Award six times, he finally received the Oscar for his work on Scorsese'sThe Aviator.