Gabriele Mencaroni

Gabriele Mencaroni is a young emerging director and director of photography. A lifelong enthusiast, after high school he studied at the Luchino Visconti School in Milan and later attended the Accademia Renoir in Rome, where he learned the fundamentals of Italian cinema from prominent figures such as Paolo Carnera, Daria D’Antonio, Daniele Ciprì, and Salvatore Landi. He also took part in directing labs and workshops on photography and storytelling at the Turin and Bobbio festivals. For years he worked in television documentary for RAI and actively contributed to high-level film productions as second assistant camera and second assistant director. During his time in Milan he experimented with the visual and narrative language of fashion film. Alongside his studies in cinematography and directing, he developed a passion for stop-motion animation, independently creating his first short films, which were selected and screened at European festivals dedicated to animated cinema. During a formative period at the Panalight rental house in Rome, he deepened his practical knowledge of professional equipment, from grip and lighting departments to camera systems. There he became familiar with Arri cameras and their accessories, building a solid technical foundation that supports his work on set. Among his sources of inspiration are the poor but epic cinema of Pasolini, the intimate vision of Alice Rohrwacher, and the authentic and silent spaces of Ermanno Olmi. His aspiration is rooted in what Tarkovsky called “cinema as prayer.” His inspirations also include Terrence Malick, Hlynur Pálmason, Werner Herzog, Ingmar Bergman, Yorgos Lanthimos, and Theo Angelopoulos, and the list could go on.

In 2024 he directed and photographed a Spanish-language medium-length film entirely shot in Tenerife. In the same year, with the support of an international crowdfunding campaign, he made his first short film on film stock.
He is currently working on several new projects, including the development of his first feature film, a collection of three forgotten stories of characters from the past. Rooted in realism, the film, like much of his work, is crossed by a subtle surreal element.