Director Federico Brugia has signed with Beverly Hills-based Saville Productions for exclusive representation in the American ad market. He was formerly repped stateside by Tate USA, Santa Monica. Earlier in his career, Brugia was handled in the U.S. by bicoastal/international Partizan.
While the lion’s share of Brugia’s spot work has been for European audiences, he is not stranger to American commercialmaking, with credits that include Toyota for Saatchi & Saatchi, Los Angeles, and Nissan Infiniti for TBWA/Chiat/Day, Los Angeles. His work in Europe, primarily Italy, has earned recognition at such competitions as the Cannes International Advertising Festival, the Clios, Mezzominuto d’oro, Epica, EuroBest and the New York Film Festival.
The director got his start helming music and fashion videos in the early 1990s. He then successfully diversified into commercials, directing for such clients as Audi, Renault, McDonald’s, Samsung, Phillips, Volvo, Visa, Lufthansa, Damiani, Alitalia, Bravo Juices and BMW. For the latter, he shot a spot in New York promoting the automaker’s 3 Series, with an ambitious historic reconstruction of the 1940s featuring more than 200 extras and 70 classic cars. Titled “New York” and conceived by agency D’adda Lorenzini Vigorelli, Milan, the spot shows a BMW coasting past Packards and DeSotos in postwar Manhattan, fascinating onlookers, including Fedora-wearing men; the period piece was shot entirely in black and white.
Known for his prowess in storytelling with fine visual touches, Brugia comes aboard a Saville roster of spot directors that includes Amon, Frank Devos, Ray Lawrence, Patricia Murphy, Sng Tong Beng, Paul Vos, Agustin Marques and Ivo Wejgaard.
Saville also works with noted feature directors for commercials such as Fabian Beielinsky (Nine Queens), Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliot, The Hours), Barry Levinson (Bugsy, Rain Man), Roger Michell (Notting Hill), Fernando Meirelles (The Constant Gardener), Chris Noonan (Babe), Bryan Singer (X-Men, The Usual Suspects, Superman Returns), Oliver Stone (Platoon, JFK), Vincent Ward (What Dreams May Come) and Wim Wenders (Buena Vista Social Club).
Martin Scorsese On “The Saints,” Faith In Filmmaking and His Next Movie
When Martin Scorsese was a child growing up in New York's Little Italy, he would gaze up at the figures he saw around St. Patrick's Old Cathedral. "Who are these people? What is a saint?" Scorsese recalls. "The minute I walk out the door of the cathedral and I don't see any saints. I saw people trying to behave well within a world that was very primal and oppressed by organized crime. As a child, you wonder about the saints: Are they human?" For decades, Scorsese has pondered a project dedicated to the saints. Now, he's finally realized it in "Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints," an eight-part docudrama series debuting Sunday on Fox Nation, the streaming service from Fox News Media. The one-hour episodes, written by Kent Jones and directed by Elizabeth Chomko, each chronicle a saint: Joan of Arc, Francis of Assisi, John the Baptist, Thomas Becket, Mary Magdalene, Moses the Black, Sebastian and Maximillian Kolbe. Joan of Arc kicks off the series on Sunday, with three weekly installments to follow; the last four will stream closer to Easter next year. In naturalistic reenactments followed by brief Scorsese-led discussions with experts, "The Saints" emphasizes that, yes, the saints were very human. They were flawed, imperfect people, which, to Scorsese, only heightens their great sacrifices and gestures of compassion. The Polish priest Kolbe, for example, helped spread antisemitism before, during WWII, sheltering Jews and, ultimately, volunteering to die in the place of a man who had been condemned at Auschwitz. Scorsese, who turns 82 on Sunday, recently met for an interview not long after returning from a trip to his grandfather's hometown in Sicily. He was made an honorary citizen and the experience was still lingering in his mind. Remarks have... Read More