Valerio Zurlini

Valerio Zurlini (19 March 1926 – 26 October 1982) was an Italian stage and film director and screenwriter.

Biography During his law studies in Rome, he started working in the theatre. In 1943, he joined the Italian resistance. He filmed short documentaries in the immediate post-war period before he directed his first feature film in 1954, The Girls of San Frediano. In 1958, Zurlini won the together with Leonardo Benvenuti, Piero De Bernardi and Alberto Lattuada for Best Script for Lattuada's Guendalina. Zurlini made his name as a director with his second feature film, Violent Summer (1959), starring Eleonora Rossi Drago and Jean Louis Trintignant. Zurlini admired the work of Italian novelist Giorgio Bassani and hoped to adapt his novel The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, which was subsequently directed by Vittorio De Sica in 1971 (see The Garden of the Finzi-Continis).

The visual style of Zurlini's adaptations was informed by Giorgio de Chirico, Giorgio Morandi and Ottone Rosai's paintings. During the last years of his life Zurlini taught at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome. He died in Verona on 26 October 1982.

Legacy After Zurlini's death, his work fell into relative obscurity, but regained popularity in the 2000s after several of his retrospectives were met with success internationally. In 2006, NoShame Films released The Desert of the Tartars, Violent Summer and Girl With a Suitcase on DVD.

Filmography (selected) The Girls of San Frediano (1954) Guendalina (1957, screenplay only) Violent Summer (1959) Girl with a Suitcase (1961) Family Diary (1962) The Camp Followers (1965) Black Jesus (1968) Indian Summer (1972) The Desert of the Tartars (1976)