Giovanni Sampogna

Giovanni Sampogna was born in Australia in 1959. Son of Italian parents, they soon moved to Italy, and eventually settled in Toronto in 1969. He permanently moved to Iceland in 2000 as a result of making his film Ice Rushes: An Icelandic Odyssey. A 1986 film studies degree from Ryerson Polytechnical University in Toronto, led to a Sr Motion Picture Technologist positon in that department, where he worked until 1996. He left to pursue his full-time experimentations in new ways of approaching documentary filmmaking. As a result, he has made film history with Ice Rushes, an experimental-documentary about the spirituality and freedom in Iceland. For the first time, the visuals have been shot "1:1", that is everything that he shoots, in the order that he shoots it in, is the final film and then wrote a sound design which was recorded in front of a live audience, all in one take, with no overdubs! Ice Rushes is the second film of his Rushes trilogy, which he concieved of as an exploration into his "1:1" style, by means of a tribute to his three mentors. The first film is Rail Rushes: A Railroad Odyssey and the last is New York Rushes: A Stanley Kubrick Odyssey (both remain unfinished).

The Rushes Trilogy is the result of over twenty years of experimentation in his "1:1" style. He has made only eighty films over that time, but has amassed over 700 "films" on video, mostly documenting the live performance arts in Toronto in the 80's and 90's. As a hermit filmmaker, he almost always works alone. Ice Rushes and ...Black Dog... are only his second and third films that he has allowed to tour on the film festival circuit; where he never applied, but rather, was asked by astute programmers. "One hundred years from now, I will be the last filmmaker on earth. Travelling with my film projector, hand-processing and narrating my films to anyone that wants to remember what it was like".

He has made almost 800 films, and steadfastly refuses to distribute, until he is good & ready!!!!!!!!!!