Arturo Ambrosio (1870–1960) was an Italian film producer who was a pioneering and influential figure in the early years of Italian cinema.

Biography

Ambrosio was a photographer who owned a shop in

Turin Turin ( , ; ; , then ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The city is main ...

. In 1904, after returning from a visit to Paris with a new film camera he began making short films of a documentary nature. In 1906 he founded Ambrosio Films and began making more ambitious fiction films. In 1908 Ambrosio produced and directed '' The Last Days of Pompeii'', a major hit which helped trigger a fashion for Italian historical epics, generally set in the

Classical era Classical antiquity, also known as the classical era, classical period, classical age, or simply antiquity, is the period of cultural European history between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD comprising the interwoven civilization ...

. Over the next decade Ambrosio oversaw a number of popular films and was able to export them to lucrative foreign markets such as Britain and America. Like other Italian filmmakers, Ambrosio struggled during the crisis that hit Italian filmmaking following the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

and his career appeared to have been ended by the commercial failure of his 1924 epic '' Quo Vadis''. However, he returned from retirement to head production at Scalera Films between 1939 and 1943.Moliterno p.7

Selected filmography

* '' The Last Days of Pompeii'' (1908) * '' Nero or The Fall of Rome (1909)'' * '' Doctor Antonio'' (1914 ) * '' Monna Vanna'' (1915) * ''

Cenere ''Cenere'' is a 1916 in film, 1916 silent film directed by and starring Febo Mari. It is adapted from the 1904 novel by the Nobel Prize-winning Sardinian writer Grazia Deledda. It is notable as the only film performance by the Italy, Italian thea ...

'' (1916) * '' Mara West'' (1921) * '' Theodora'' (1921) * '' The Ship'' (1921) * '' Quo Vadis'' (1924)

References

Bibliography

* Moliterno, Gino. ''Historical Dictionary of Italian Cinema''. Scarecrow Press, 2008.

External links

* 1870 births 1960 deaths Italian film producers Italian film directors Film people from Turin {{Italy-film-bio-stub