Angelo
Salamanca
(Angelo
Simon Salamanca)
b. September 2, 1955, Caltagirone
(Sicily), Italy.
BIOGRAPHY:
Angelo graduated from Swinburne Film
and Television School in 1991, where his graduate film Urban
Myth was picked up for distribution by the AFI and received
a Certificate of Merit at the Nimes Film Festival, France.
He has been
professionally active in film and video production for 19 years
with experience in directing, screenwriting and casting. His first
efforts at screenwriting included co-writing Hungry Heart
(Edinburgh and Montreal Film Festivals) directed by Luigi Acquisto,
and writing Closer and Closer Apart, described by David
Stratton in Variety as "a well-written script".
He was a
member of the Melbourne International Film Festival features and
documentary pre-selection panel for 11 years, and has also served
twice on the AFI Awards panel for shorts and animation.
He has written
and directed two feature films, Hostage to Fate, produced
by Michael Agar, and Zyco
Rock, produced by Ian Handasyde.
CRITICAL
OVERVIEW:
In my works I have, by and large,
attempted to explore the dark side of the human psyche within
the context of gender and sexual politics. My feeling is that
the "dark side" needn't be forbidding. I'm excited by
examining the comedic and farcical in drama, as well as the tragic
in the mundane. I'm fascinated by how much an "ordinary"
life may be deemed heroic, how the minutiae of everyday existence
can assume epic proportions.
The exploration
of the self is a common theme in any genre of story-telling. I
suppose this as sub-text is the motif which is integral to most
of my work. For the medium of film-making affords one the tools
with which to depict character in all its hues in different time
and space. Also, the juxtaposition of naturalism and the stylized,
is a constant source of fascination to me. I'm interested in playing
the two against each other and seeing what emerges from the drama.
I can't be
certain that I've succeeded in my attempts. Nor can I be certain
that I'll endeavor to continue this exploration in future films.
Suffice to say that I have learnt a good deal by attempting it
and, I suspect, will learn heaps more.
The
Right Moves (1998, 20 mins, Super 8)
(as director only, produced by Ian Handasyde)
The Spider
and the Fly (2002, 15 mins, 35mm)
(as
director only, produced by Savant Films)
Hostage
to Fate (2000-03, 95 mins, Super 16)
ReVivo
Zyco Rock
(2008, 88 mins, HDV)
The Last Babushka Doll (2017, 15 mins, HD)
(as Director)
(Georgina Luck
as Writer and Producer)
ReVivo (2018, 20 mins, CGI animation)
(as Writer and Director)
(Steve Middleton
as Animator and Producer) ReVivo, a 7 year project, is in final stages of post-production (late 2017).
Life on Earth: Severance (feature, 2018, currently in post)
(as Director)
(Kieran King as Writer / Kieran King and Emma Burnside as Producers)
As
writer:
Closer
and Closer Apart (1988, 87 mins, 16mm)
Directed
by Steve Middleton and produced by Rosa Colosimo.
As
co-writer:
Hungry
Heart (1987, 95 mins, 16mm)
Directed
by Luigi Acquisto and produced by Rosa Colosimo.
The Barbecue (2018, feature, completed, due for release in 2018)
Directed
by Stephen Amis.
Script readings at ScreenPlay:
director
of reading of Bella Donna
(feature film script by Susannah
Farrow, Chapel off Chapel, 2003)
director of reading of Yellowing
(short film script
by Meg McNenna, Chapel off Chapel, 2003)
director of
reading of Sells Like Teen Spirit (feature film script
by Warwick Holt and m. blackwell, ACMI, Feb 2004)
writer of feature film script God's Little Children
(reading
directed by Jan Sardi, ACMI, June 2004)
Feature
film projects in Development:
A Woman Apart
Twenty years in the life of Lucia, a Sicilian proxy bride who is coerced into leaving her village to join her husband in Australia.
Gatecrash
Twenty-year old Ronny, only child of a wealthy family, has heaps of emotional baggage and it’s eating away at his soul. As a fourteen year old kid, living in a coastal town, rebelling against his dictatorial parents, Ronny got drunk, stole a car and went joy-riding. He ended up killing the driver and his wife and left their seventeen year-old daughter with horrific injuries. Now, seven years later, Ronny has the incident playing over and over in his head and he needs more than just therapy, soul-searching, and profound feelings of remorse to exorcise demons within him.
God's Little Children
A gritty
drama about love lost, love found, humanity gained, on pitiless
urban streets and lonely country roads. (script edited by Luigi
Acquisto)
