Alfio Contini

Biography

Alfio Contini (1927-2020) was an Italian cinematographer whose career spanned more than five decades of commercial and auteur cinema. His name is linked both to the Italian comedy of the sixties and to the films of Michelangelo Antonioni, two very different strands that show the range of his work.

After establishing himself in Italian cinema during the 1960s, he worked with Dino Risi on The Easy Life (1962), one of the most remembered comedies of its era, and with Pasquale Festa Campanile on The Matriarch (1968). For Liliana Cavani he shot Galileo (1968) and The Night Porter (1974), and he also collaborated with Lucio Fulci. His work with Antonioni, on Zabriskie Point (1970) and Beyond the Clouds (1995), gave him two of the most recognisable projects in his filmography.

In 1996 he won the David di Donatello for Best Cinematography for Beyond the Clouds. Contini kept working into the early twenty-first century, with credits such as Ripley's Game (2002), and he died in 2020. His legacy lies in a broad and varied body of work, in which light and framing served directors with very different styles.

Key films

• The Easy Life (1962), directed by Dino Risi, with photography that suits the comedy's road-trip tone.
• Zabriskie Point (1970), directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, one of the most distinctive titles in his work with the director.
• The Night Porter (1974), directed by Liliana Cavani, a controversial drama whose imagery builds an unsettling atmosphere.
• Beyond the Clouds (1995), directed by Antonioni and Wim Wenders, the film that earned him the David di Donatello in 1996.
• Ripley's Game (2002), directed by Liliana Cavani, one of his later notable credits.