Director and Screenwriter
Niccolò Donatini (born June 30, 1998) is an Italian film director and author. He graduated with honors in 2023
in Cinema and New Technologies from IULM University in Milan, studying with Andrea Caccia, Gianni Canova
and Michelangelo Frammartino, with a thesis entitled Slow Cinema: Minimalist Aesthetics between Mexico and Southeast Asia. In 2021, he directed his first short film, Cecità, starring Celeste Dalla Porta and
inspired by the novel by José Saramago. In 2022, he wrote and directed La Lastra, a coming-of-age story about pre-adolescent love, which won first prize at the Sottodiciotto Film Festival & Campus 2023 and is currently
distributed by WeShort. Since 2023, he has collaborated with Basement Headquarters, for which he directed his first advertising campaigns (Baracuta, Unimatic), and founded the ANPI Londa Film Festival, an international festival dedicated to films about resistance and human rights, now in its sixth edition. That same year, he was
selected for numerous national and international film residencies—including La Guarimba, Occhi sul Lago, Naufragare at the Bellaria Film Festival, Nouvelle Bug, and Officine IED—working with directors such as Andrea Gatopoulos, Alessandro Comodin, and Silvio Soldini. This process has led to two works with a strong social impact: AEOLUS, a machinima-style documentary about the 2022 Stromboli fire (Honorable Mention at SediciCorto, the Pirate Cinema Award at ArteSettima, and an international premiere at FIDBA), and Ronzìo, a fictional short film about a young student with ADHD, which won the Best Direction award at the FEDIC Academy, the Milano Shorts Film Festival, the Tulipani di Seta Nera Festival, and the Critics’ Award at the Roma Film Corto. In 2024, she participated in a workshop in Mexico directed by the Pardo d’Oro Pedro Costa, which resulted in De donde vienes, Silencio, an Italian-Spanish co-production (PlayLab Films and Basement Headquarters), distributed by Nieminen and presented as a world premiere at Alice nella Città – Rome Film Festival, in the Ondecorte – Panorama Italia section. At the same time, he worked on his first feature-length documentary, The Lobster (working title), dedicated to the life of photographer and artist Jacopo Benassi. Meanwhile, he worked as a tutor for the Luchino Visconti Civic Film School in Milan, together with Tekla Taidelli, with whom he founded the Street Cinema association. Through symbolism, the contamination of languages, and constant stylistic research, Donatini explores the fragility of the individual in the dialogue between the inner and outer worlds, maintaining a strong intimate and cathartic tension.