Mariano Baino
Mariano Baino (born March 17, 1967) is a film director, screenwriter and editor mainly working in the horror genre.
He has been hailed as “one of the great torch-bearers for expressionistic genre cinema” by Montreal's Fantasia Film Festival. He's also the recipient of the Vincent Price Award for Outstanding Contribution to Fantastic Cinema and other awards. He's been called "someone with a vivid and savage imagination that Bram Stoker would envy" by British newspaper The Daily Star, and "an unholy hybrid of Bergman and Argento" by Film Review. His work has often been compared to Bergman's for its somber atmosphere and depth of religious meditation. Stereoscopic movie HIDDEN 3D is based on an original story Baino and Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni co-wrote.
Biography
Born in Naples, Italy, he started shooting short films at an early age and started working as a production assistant in shows for Italian television. Later he moved to London, England, where in 1990 he wrote and directed the short film Caruncula, that firstly fully showed his moviemaking skills. Novelist Ramsey Campbell called CARUNCULA "Not only a fine tribute to the Italian horror masters, but a small masterpiece of sustained perversity in its own right."
In 1994 he made his feature debut with Dark Waters, an atmospheric horror movie inspired by the short stories of H. P. Lovecraft. Despite a troubled production in the Ukraine, the movie achieved critical acclaim and is experiencing a still growing attention from horror fans. The film was released in a special edition double disc box-set in the USA in 2007 and, in July 2014, The Ecstasy of Film re-released Dark Waters in France in a new collectors' edition. The same company also released, always for the French market, Baino's The Trinity of Darkness.
Baino has worked as a screenwriter for hire for many years while developing directing projects. He wrote the surreal drama Flower of Shame for German producer Vesna Jovanoska who also hired him to adapt Chris Niles' urban thriller Hell's Kitchen for the screen. His short film Never Ever After explores Baino's concern with body image in a wholly original way which reminds us of the best of The Twilight Zone but with a style that it's totally its own.
In 2008 he was commissioned to write the screenplay for Thy Kingdom Come, a Re-Dark production shot in Argentina with an American cast and directed by Estonian born auteur Ilmar Taska. The film was released in Italy and Spain at the end of 2010, and a US release followed in 2011.
Baino was hired to rewrite The Curse of The Vij, based on Nikolai Gogol's legendary short story, for production company Film-maker srl and director Robert Englund.
Baino shares "Story by" credit with Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni on stereoscopic movie Hidden 3D. The movie is an English language Canadian/Italian co-production which counts among its producers Oscar winner Don Carmody.[1]
Filmography
as Writer, Director and Editor:
- Dream Car (1989)
- Caruncula (1990)
- Dark Waters (1994)
as Writer, Director, Producer and Editor:
- Never Ever After (2005)
- The Trinity of Darkness(2014)
as Writer:
- Thy Kingdom Come (2008)
- The Curse of The Vij (2009)
- Hidden 3D (Story by) (2011)