VFX studio Luma, Santa Monica and Melbourne, has secured Diana Giorgiutti as executive producer of features. With international experience in feature films spanning 35 years, most recently as a visual effects producer for Marvel Studios, Giorgiutti crosses over to the vendor side which signals tremendous leverage in Luma’s positioning in the film industry.
For the past six years, she has been part of a collaboration with Marvel producers Victoria Alonso, Kevin Feige, and Louis D’Esposito. During this time Giorgiutti built a strong working relationship with Luma, led by founder Payam Shohadai. Most recently, Giorgiutti worked directly with Shohadai and the team on Ant-Man, for which Luma completed approximately 360 shots as a lead VFX house on the film. Previously, Giorgiutti collaborated with Luma on Marvel titles including Thor, Thor: The Dark World, and Captain America: The First Avenger.
“Knowing how important Marvel’s work is, for me, the vendors and artists that bring the vision to life are equally important,” Giorgiutti remarked. “I really admire the way Payam has built Luma as an independent, artist-owned and artist-run company, and the exceptional care he shows the staff. This is a huge draw.”
As EP of features, Giorgiutti will act as a direct link between the studios and Luma, and guide projects for Luma’s crew of artists, supervisors and technicians operating as one big studio across Santa Monica and Melbourne. With the confidence and trust of Marvel and other major film studios, Giorgiutti troubleshoots on the ground level to ensure the clients are well-serviced and the artistic vision is executed on time, on budget, and with exceptional care and attention.
Giorgiutti has produced for such films as Baz Luhrmann’s Australia and the Wachowski’s groundbreaking Matrix series, with the first Matrix film winning the Oscar for Best Visual Effects. Other credits include Lords of Dogtown, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Romeo Must Die, and Babe.
Before making the move to Los Angeles, Giorgiutti was based in London where she worked as a visual effects producer at Richard Branson’s post house Rushes and as the producer/owner of Big Tuna Productions. Her career started in her hometown of Sydney, Australia, where she worked as an editor’s assistant, eventually moving to colorist, before helping to set up Frame, Set and Match as director of post production. There, she was responsible for buying the first-ever Avid in Australia and building the company from three people to a staff of 50.
Luma’s credits include VFX for blockbusters such as Ant-Man, Guardians of the Galaxy, Insurgent, Prometheus, Thor: The Dark World, Oz: The Great and Powerful, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier, as well as such live-action films as Prisoners, True Grit, and No Country for Old Men.
Review: Writer-Director Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance”
In its first two hours, "The Substance" is a well-made, entertaining movie. Writer-director Coralie Fargeat treats audiences to a heavy dose of biting social commentary on ageism and sexism in Hollywood, with a spoonful of sugar- and sparkle-doused body horror.
But the film's deliciously unhinged, blood-soaked and inevitably polarizing third act is what makes it unforgettable.
What begins as a dread-inducing but still relatively palatable sci-fi flick spirals deeper into absurdism and violence, eventually erupting — quite literally — into a full-blown monster movie. Let the viewer decide who the monster is.
Fargeat — who won best screenplay at this year's Cannes Film Festival — has been vocal about her reverence for "The Fly" director David Cronenberg, and fans of the godfather of body horror will see his unmistakable influence. But "The Substance" is also wholly unique and benefits from Fargeat's perspective, which, according to the French filmmaker, has involved extensive grappling with her own relationship to her body and society's scrutiny.
"The Substance" tells the story of Elisabeth Sparkle, a famed aerobics instructor with a televised show, played by a powerfully vulnerable Demi Moore. Sparkle is fired on her 50th birthday by a ruthless executive — a perfectly cast Dennis Quaid, who nails sleazy and gross.
Feeling rejected by a town that once loved her and despairing over her bygone star power, Sparkle learns from a handsome young nurse about a black-market drug that promises to create a "younger, more beautiful, more perfect" version of its user. Though she initially tosses the phone number in the trash, she soon fishes it out in a desperate panic and places an order.
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