Life and career

Turco holds degrees in History

History

History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...

 and Philosophy

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

. He studied under Ugo Pirro

Ugo Pirro

Ugo Pirro was an Italian screenwriter.Born Ugo Mattone in Salerno, he debuted as screenwriter for director Carlo Lizzani ....

, Leonardo Benvenuti

Leonardo Benvenuti

Leonardo Benvenuti was an Italian screenwriter. He wrote for 135 films between 1948 and 2000.He was born in Florence, Italy and died in Rome, Italy.-Selected filmography:* Once Upon a Time in America...

 and Robert McKee

Robert McKee

Robert McKee, born 1941, is a creative writing instructor who is widely known for his popular "Story Seminar", which he developed when he was a professor at the University of Southern California. McKee is the author of a "screenwriters' bible" called Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the...

 at Aldo Giuffrè

Aldo Giuffrè

Aldo Giuffrè was an Italian film actor and comedian who appeared in over 90 films between 1948 and 2001. He was born in Naples....

's drama school. Turco also wrote for L'Unità

L'Unità

l'Unità is an Italian left-wing newspaper, originally founded as official newspaper of the Italian Communist Party.-History:L'Unità was founded by Antonio Gramsci on 12 February 1924, as the newspaper of workers and peasants, the official newspaper of Italian Communist Party : it was printed in...

 and Movie magazine.

Turco began his career as an assistant to such directors as Tonino Valerii

Tonino Valerii

Tonino Valerii is an Italian film director, most known for his Spaghetti Westerns. Valerii started his film career as an assistant director on Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars, before moving on to direct by himself...

, Franco Giraldi, Damiano Damiani and Gianni Amelio

Gianni Amelio

Gianni Amelio is an Italian film director.-Biography:Amelio was born in San Pietro di Magisano, province of Catanzaro, Calabria. His father moved to Argentina soon after his birth. He spent his youth and adolescence with his mother and his grandmother...

. He directed several commercials and documentaries. His short films "La sveglia" (1994) and "Coincidenze" (1995) were both featured at the Venice Film Festival

Venice Film Festival

The Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...

. He made his feature film debut in 1998 with Vite in sospeso. The same year he co-wrote the script for the film Tano da morire. In 2005, he released the documentary Excellent Cadavers

Excellent Cadavers

Excellent Cadavers is a 1995 non-fiction book by American author Alexander Stille about the Sicilian Mafia, concentrating on magistrate Giovanni Falcone's fight against the Mafia and his 1992 assassination....

 which chronicles the story of Giovanni Falcone

Giovanni Falcone

Giovanni Falcone was an Sicilian/Italian prosecuting magistrate born in Palermo, Sicily. From his office in the Palace of Justice in Palermo, he spent most of his professional life trying to overthrow the power of the Mafia in Sicily...

 and Paolo Borsellino

Paolo Borsellino

Paolo Borsellino was an Italian anti-Mafia magistrate who was killed by a Mafia car bomb in Palermo, less than two months after his fellow anti-Mafia magistrate Giovanni Falcone had been assassinated....

, Italian magistrates assassinated by the Mafia

Mafia

The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...

 in 1992. The film received a nomination for a David di Donatello

David di Donatello

David di Donatello, named after Donatello's David, is a movie award assigned each year for cinematic performances and production by Ente David di Donatello, part of Accademia del Cinema Italiano. It is the Italian equivalent to the Academy Award. There are 24 categories as of 2006.- History :The...

 for Best Documentary.

In 2007, he directed the miniseries Rino Gaetano - Ma il cielo è sempre più blu for Rai Uno

Rai Uno

Rai 1 is the primary television station of RAI, the national public service broadcaster, and the most watched television channel in Italy. It was born as Rai Tv from 1954 to 1961, called Programma Nazionale from 1961 to 1979, after called Rete 1 from 1979 to 1982, then called Rai Uno from 1982 to...

.
Turco released his film La straniera in 2009. Financed by Italy's Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities, La straniera was screened at the Turin

Turin

Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...

 Film Festival and the Bari Film Festival.
In 2010, Turco returned to television with the miniseries C'era una volta la città dei matti..., a fictionalized biography of Italian psychiatrist Franco Basaglia

Franco Basaglia

Franco Basaglia was an Italian psychiatrist and neurologist, professor who proposed the dismantling of psychiatric hospitals, pioneer of the modern concept of mental health, Italian psychiatry reformer, charismatic leader in Italian psychiatry, figurehead and founder of Democratic...

.

Awards

• Telepiù Award for "La sveglia" at the 1994 Venice Film Festival
• Best Italian Short Film for "Coincidenze" at the 1996 Capalbio Cinema International Short Film Festival

Filmography

• 1994 - "La sveglia"
• 1995 - "Coincidenze"
• 1997 - "Jazzitudine"
• 1998 - Vite in sospeso
• 1999 - Il lato sinistro dell'amore
• 1999 - A famiglia
• 2001 - Ritratti italiani n. 7: Gillo Pontecorvo
• 2005 - Excellent Cadavers
  Excellent Cadavers
  Excellent Cadavers is a 1995 non-fiction book by American author Alexander Stille about the Sicilian Mafia, concentrating on magistrate Giovanni Falcone's fight against the Mafia and his 1992 assassination....
  
  
• 2008 - Rino Gaetano - Ma il cielo è sempre più blu (TV)
• 2009 - La straniera (film)
• 2010 - C'era una volta la città dei matti... (TV)

External links

• Marco Turco at IMDB