Freeze

Niccolò Donatini (June 30, 1998) is an Italian film director and author. He graduated with honors in 2023 in Cinema and New Technologies from the IULM University in Milan, training with Andrea Caccia, Gianni Canova, and Michelangelo Frammartino, with a thesis titled Slow cinema: l’estetica minimalista tra Messico e Sudest asiatico (Slow cinema: minimalist aesthetics between Mexico and Southeast Asia). In 2021, he made his first short film, Cecità, starring Celeste Dalla Porta and inspired by José Saramago's novel. In 2022, he wrote and directed La Lastra, a coming-of-age story about pre-adolescent love, which won the first prize at the Sottodiciotto Film Festival & Campus 2023 and is currently distributed by WeShort. Since 2023, he has collaborated with Basement Headquarter, for which he directed his first advertising campaigns (Baracuta, Unimatic), and founded the Anpi Londa Film Festival, an international review dedicated to cinema on resistance and human rights, now in its sixth edition. That same year, he was selected for numerous national and international film residencies—including La Guarimba, Occhi sul Lago, Naufragare at the Bellaria Film Festival, Nouvelle Bug, and Officine IED—working with directors such as Andrea Gatopoulos, Alessandro Comodin, and Silvio Soldini. From this journey, two works with a strong social impact were born: AEOLUS, a machinima-style documentary on the 2022 Stromboli fire (Honorable Mention at SediciCorto, Cinema Pirata Award at ArteSettima, international premiere at FIDBA), and Ronzìo, a fiction short film dedicated to a young student with ADHD, awarded Best Director at FEDIC Academy, at the Milano Shorts Film Festival, at the Festival Tulipani di Seta Nera, and with the Critics' Award at Roma Film Corto. In 2024, he participated in a workshop in Mexico directed by Pardo d'Oro winner Pedro Costa, which led to De donde vienes, Silencio, an Italy–Spain co-production (PlayLab Films and Basement Headquarter), distributed by Nieminen and presented in world premiere at Alice nella Città – Festa del Cinema di Roma, in the "Ondecorte – Panorama Italia" section. In parallel, he is working on his first feature-length documentary, The Lobster (working title), dedicated to the life of photographer and artist Jacopo Benassi. Meanwhile, he works as a tutor for the Civica Scuola di Cinema Luchino Visconti in Milan together with Tekla Taidelli, with whom he founded the Street Cinema association. Through symbolism, the contamination of languages, and constant stylistic research, Donatini explores the fragility of the individual in the dialogue between the inner and outer world, maintaining a strong, intimate, and cathartic tension.