Jonas Carpignano was born in 1984 and grew up in New York City and Rome. His first feature film, Mediterranea, debuted at the Cannes Film Festival—Semaine de la Critique in 2015 before receiving the award for the best directorial debut of 2015 from the National Board of Review as well as the Gotham Independent Film Award for breakthrough director. The film was nominated for three Independent Spirit Awards, including best first feature. His second feature film, A Ciambra, had its world premiere at the Quinzaine des réalisateurs at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Europa Cinema Label prize for best European film. The film won numerous awards and prizes in addition to earning Carpignano a nomination for best director at the Independent Spirit Awards. A Ciambra was chosen to represent Italy for best foreign-language film at the 2018 Academy Awards and was named the best Italian film of 2017 by the National Syndicate of Italian Film Critics. About his selections, Carpignano wrote: “Basically I tried to go with films that I’ve seen a lot and regularly put on lists, whenever I feel like I have to make them . . . films I talk about the most, which is a broad criteria. They’re all films that I continually watch and love.”
Biography via Criterion.
