Arturo Ambrosio

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Arturo Ambrosio (* 1869 in Turin , Italy ; † 1960 ) was an Italian producer and director and is considered the father of the Italian film industry.

Life

He got into the burgeoning film industry through the optical equipment business he owned. There he began to film and produce documentaries in 1904 , the first to be made in Italy . The following year, Ambrosio founded the first Italian film studio, Film Ambrosio , and went on to make documentaries.

Eventually he began producing fictional films and became known for his epic works, particularly The Last Days of Pompeii (1908). In 1911 the first film competition in history took place at the Expo Internazionale , the world exhibition in Turin , where Ambrosio also had his production company, Film Ambrosio , and Ambrosio won the very first film award in the world. The next year he went to Russia and helped build the film industry there. In the late 1910s, Ambrosio founded the UCI , a production company used to make spectacles such as Theodora (1919), however they were generally unsuccessful. Ambrosio retired from filmmaking in 1943 after producing around 14,000 films.

Filmography (selection)

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