Cristaldi, Franco

(1924-1992)

   Producer. One of the most out-standing producers of the Italian postwar cinema, Cristaldi began in the industry in 1946 when he founded the Vides Cinematografica. He had soon produced some 50 high-quality documentaries and short films before helping to write and produce La pattuglia sperduta (The Lost Patrol, 1953), the interesting first feature by Piero Nelli. Then, during the next four decades, consistently demonstrating foresight and fine judgment, Cristaldi produced the first films of a host of young directors who would become the great names of Italian cinema, among them Francesco Rosi, Gillo Pontecorvo, Marco Bellocchio, Elio Petri, and Francesco Maselli. As well as actively promoting new talent at all levels—he was responsible for the emergence of Claudia Cardinale, whom he would later marry—he also worked with established directors such as Luchino Visconti to make Le notti bianche (White Nights, 1957) and Federico Fellini on Amarcord (1973). He gained his first great box office success in Italy with Mario Monicelli's I soliti ignoti (Big Deal on Madonna Street, 1958) but went on to achieve international renown with Pietro Germi's Divorzio all'italiana (Divorce Italian Style, 1961), which received the comedy prize at Cannes, two Golden Globes, and the Academy Award for Best Screenplay. In 1969 he mounted the first Italo-Soviet coproduction to make Mikhail Kalatozov's Krasnaya palatka (The Red Tent, 1969) before also producing Louis Malle's Lacombe Lucien (1973). In the 1980s, with the Vides renamed Cristaldifilm, he again achieved great box office success with his co-production of Jean-Jacques Annaud's The Name of the Rose (1986) before being responsible for the reedited version of Giuseppe Tornatore's Nuovo cinema Paradiso (Cinema Paradiso, 1988), which would win the Oscar for Best Foreign Film in 1990. His last production was another first film by an emerging director, Carlo Carlei's La corsa dell'innocente (The Flight of the Innocent, 1993), nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film.