PONZI, MAURIZIO

(1939-)

Film critic, director, screenwriter. After working as a film critic and regular writer for journals such asFilm-criticaandCinema 60, Ponzi graduated to making documentaries for theCorona Cinematograficacompany in the mid-1960s before serv-ing as assistant director toPier Paolo Pasolinion his episode of the omnibus film,Amore e rabbia(Love and Anger, 1967). A year later Ponzi wrote and directed his first feature,I visionari(The Visionaries, 1968), a film inspired by the writings of Robert Musil that was awarded the Golden Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival. This was followed byEquinozio(Equinox, 1971), an adaptation of a futuristic novel by Anna Banti, andIl caso Raoul(The House of Raoul, 1975), based on a clinical case study from R.D. Laing'sSelf and Others. Ponzi then worked for a number of years in television, where he directed, among other things, a version of Henrik Ibsen's 19th-century playHedda Gabler, and adocumentaryonCinecitta. He returned to the big screen in the early 1980s with a series of light comedies featuring ex-cabaret actor (and future director)Francesco Nuti:Madonna che silenzio c'e stasera(What a Ghostly Silence There Is Tonight, 1982),Io, Chiara e lo Scuro(The Pool Hustlers, 1982), andSon contento(I'm Happy, 1983). These were followed by the family melodramaQualcosa di biondo(Aurora by Night, 1984), which markedSophia Loren's return to the screen after a significant absence;Il Volpone(The Big Fox, 1988), loosely based on Ben Jonson's caustic 17th-century comedy; andVolevo i pantaloni(I Wanted Trousers, 1990), the adaptation of a best-selling novel by Lara Cardella that denounced the continuing oppression of women in southern Italian families. After the porn-movie spoofVietato ai minori(Forbidden to Minors, 1992), and the more sociologically inspiredItaliani(Italians, 1996), Ponzi's most recent effort wasA luci spente(With Lights Out, 2004), a film about the making of a film during the last years of World War II that fictionally recreates the events surroundingVittorio De Sica's direction ofLa porta del cielo(The Gate of Heaven) in 1944.