Bozzetto, Bruno

(1938-)

   Director, cartoonist, animator. Widely regarded as Italy's leading animator, in 1958 Bozzetto created by hand in his home his first 13-minute animated short film, Tapum: La storia delle armi (A History of Weapons, 1958). Following the critical acclaim the film received, Bozzetto was able to access better facilities in order to produce La storia delle invenzioni (History of Inventions, 1959) and soon to establish his own company, Bruno Bozzetto Film. With Un Oscar per il Signor Rossi (An Award for Mr. Rossi, 1960), Bozzetto gave birth to the distinctive little man with the red hat who would become the Bozzetto trademark and who would subsequently reappear in many stories such as Il Signor Rossi compra I'automobile (Mr. Rossi Buys a Car, 1967), Il Signor Rossi al camping (Mr Rossi Goes Camping, 1970), and the full-length feature I sogni del Signor Rossi (Mr. Rossi Dreams, 1977). In 1976, together with actor-animator Maurizio Nichetti, Bozzetto made Allegro non troppo (1976), which mixed live action and animation to illustrate six pieces of classical music in something of a parody of Disney's Fantasia. Sotto il ristorante cinese (Under the Chinese Restaurant, 1987) also mixed live action and animation in a charming modern fable partly based on Shakespeare's The Tempest.

   Having already collected numerous prizes and awards, Bozzetto received the Golden Bear at the 1990 Berlin Film Festival for Mistertao (Mr. Tao, 1989) and a year later an Oscar nomination for Cavallette (Grasshoppers, 1990). In the following years he produced, among other things, an acclaimed animated short for Hanna Barbera, HELP? (1995), and in 1996, in coproduction with RAI television and with the support of Cartoon, the Media Programme of the European Union, he created the 26-episode cartoon serial The Spaghetti Family. One of Bozzetto's most amusing subsequent creations was the two-dimensional computer animation Europe & Italy (1999), which graphically illustrated how Italian social habits differed from the European norm. Among Bozzetto's many delightful creations is his own animated website: www.bozzetto.com.