Samantha Casella (born October 1, 1981) is an Italian filmmaker and screenwriter.
Born in Faenza to a middle-class family, Samantha Casella studied at Alessandro Baricco's Holden School and at the the Immagina School of Cinema in Florence.
She began to take her first steps into the world of cinema directing the short film "Juliette", which received a total of 19 awards, including two awards at the "Massimo Troisi European Award".
In the following years she showed her versatile style alternating at the creation of short films, documentaries and video clips.
The cinematographic path of those years, has seen her as author of short films presented in various international festivals such as "Interrupted Silences" with Raffaella Ponzo,”Iris” with Elisabetta Rocchetti and Ágape with Marina Rocco and Paolo Stella.
In 2006 she has also wrote and directed "Giro di Giostra", presented during the Mostra internazionale d'arte Cinematografica di Venezia 2006, in the Venice Film Meeting section.
About documentaries, her most important works can be considered "Mediterraneo", presented at the Venice Biennale and centered on the figure of the famous sculptor Giuseppe Spagnulo, "Il West Secondo Civitelli" on the well-known cartoonist of Tex Willer, "Via Crucis al Pantheon" which documents the work processes of the Via Crucis created by the sculptor Federico Severino and located on 11 September 2010 in the Pantheon in Rome, and "Autoritratto con Papa", testimony to a gift consisting of a work by Gianni Bubani and a poem by Davide Rondoni dedicated to Pope Benedict XVI.
In 2019 she returned to directing another short: "I Am Banksy" with Marco Iannitello, Caterina Silva and Diego Verdegiglio.
In addition to being distributed in theaters in Los Angeles through Fourwalled; "I Am Banksy" won Best International Short at the Golden State Film Festival, Best Mystery Short at the Olympus Film Festival, Best Foreign Short at the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival Award, Best International Short at the Los Angeles Theatrical Release Competition & Award and Best International Short at the Marina Del Rey Film Festival; all organized in Los Angeles County.
Samantha Casella has also won Best Female Director Awards at the Cinemagic Film Festival and the Accolade Global Film Competition.
Overall, the short film has so far totaled 13 awards.
Influenced by the pictorial world, Samantha Casella's directing style leads her to prefer stories crossed by a deep surreal atmosphere, in which the unconscious dimension has a predominant value.
Often she has been defined as a visionary director (https://www.lifeandpeople.it/samantha-casella-una-regista-visionaria/) projected to investigate the dark side that resides in the heart and mind of her characters.