Murilo Pasta

Murilo Pasta is a REAL name; born and bred in Brazil, ¾ Italian, ¼ Native Brazilian mixed with Portuguese (actually Sephardic Jews who escaped the Inquisition). It all started at a flea-ridden, musty - and yet lovely - old cinema with hard wooden seats in the small country town where my family hails from. Frequently, I was the only patron around, an 11-year-old kid on his own watching stuff that was not exactly G-rated. The cinema owner and his male lover openly appreciated my adoration for the movies and would even get the popcorn machine going for me alone. The first one you never forget: a Sergio Leone/Ennio Morricone powerhouse; it grabbed me by the throat and hasn't let up since. By the time I went to college to study filmmaking I had already fallen in love with Fellini, Buñuel, Hitchcock, Pasolini, Truffaut, Godard, Andrzej Wajda, Rainer Werner Fassbinder's stunning body of work, Wim Wenders' 1970s/80s masterpieces, Douglas Sirk, Billy Wilder, Howard Hawks, Preston Sturges... I was then a true snob of an art-house movie nerd, until completely by chance I watched Frank Capra's 'It Happened One Night' on a Saturday night on TV with my dad. This serendipity not only changed everything, but also laid the foundation for my mission as an artist and which I call the Holy Grail of filmmaking: to write and direct movies that are simultaneously highly entertaining and touch upon a fundamental aspect of the human experience. The loves of my life, cinema aside, are my daughter Rosa Giulietta and our gallant and handsome border collie Pingo.