Matthew Puccini

Matthew Puccini (born ) is an American filmmaker. He is known for his short films that deal with LGBT-related subject matters. These include The Mess He Made, Marquise (2018), Dirty (2020) and Lavender (2019). His films have played at several festivals including Sundance, SXSW, Aspen Shortsfest, Palm Springs ShortsFest, and Outfest Los Angeles. His work has also been featured on Topic and The Huffington Post.

Life and career Puccini grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2015, while attending New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, he made his first film as writer and director, Solo, which starred Tommy Nelson and Matthew Mindler. It earned Puccini the King Award for Screenwriting at NYU’s First Run Film Festival and won the 2017 Golden Reel Award for Best Student Film at the Tiburon International Film Festival.

After graduating from NYU in 2017, Puccini made his next film, The Mess He Made, which showed the experience of waiting for the results of an HIV test through the eyes of a man, played by Max Jenkins. The film premiered at SXSW in 2017, where it became a finalist for the Iris Prize. That same year, Puccini became a member of the 2017 New York Film Festival Artist Academy, a Richie Jackson Fellow at Tisch School of the Arts and a Creative Culture Fellow at the Jacob Burns Film Center. He then produced two more short films, Stumped and Marquise, the latter of which was acquired for streaming by Topic Studios.

In 2018, Puccini was named a Sundance Ignite Fellow. He created a Kickstarter campaign to fund Lavender, which he then produced later that year, starring Michael Hsu Rosen, Ken Barnett and Michael Urie. The film premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for both the festival's Short Film Grand Jury Prize and Vimeo’s Best Drama of 2019, and won the Here Media Award for Best Queer Short Film at the Provincetown International Film Festival. Its distribution rights were acquired by Fox Searchlight Pictures after its Sundance premiere.

In 2020, his next film, Dirty premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for the Jury Award for Best Short Film. The film was screened virtually at SXSW due to the COVID-19 pandemic, where it was nominated for the Grand Jury Award for Narrative Short and received a Special Jury Award for Acting. It then went on to play at BFI Flare, Outfest Fusion, Atlanta Film Festival and the Palm Springs ShortsFest. In October 2020, the film's streaming rights were acquired by The Criterion Channel.

In 2024, Puccini and Lavender co-producer Casey Bader participated in the Creators Market at that year's Tribeca Festival to pitch what they hope will be Puccini's feature directorial debut.

Filmography Year Title Role Notes 2013 A Fiberglass Affair Editor Narrative short 2014 Do Us Part Editor Narrative short 2014 Anchovies Editor Narrative short 2015 Backyard Portal Editor Narrative short 2015 Solo Director, writer Narrative short 2016 Where People Hide Away Editor Narrative short 2016 Burning Child Editor Narrative short 2017 The Mess He Made Director, producer, writer Narrative short 2017 Stumped Director, writer, editor Narrative short 2018 Marquise Director, writer, editor Documentary short 2019 Lavender Director, writer Narrative short 2020 Dirty Director, producer, writer Narrative short 2021 Queer/Elder Director Documentary short 2022 Starfuckers Executive producer Narrative short

Awards and nominations

Film festival awards Year Festival Film Award Result Notes 2016 NYU First Run Film Festival Solo King Award for Screenwriting 2017 Tiburon International Film Festival Golden Reel Award for Best Student Film SXSW Film Festival The Mess He Made Grand Jury Award for Narrative Short Sarasota Film Festival Grand Jury Prize - Narrative Short Competition 2019 Sundance Film Festival Lavender Grand Jury Prize - Short Film Sarasota Film Festival Grand Jury Prize - Narrative Short Competition SXSW Film Festival Grand Jury Award for Narrative Short Provincetown International Film Festival Here Media Award - Best Queer Short Film 2020 Sundance Film FestivalDirty Grand Jury Prize - Short Film SXSW Film Festival Grand Jury Award for Narrative Short Palm Springs International ShortFest Best LGBTQ+ Short Montclair Film Festival Fiction Shorts Competition