Director and video artist Luigi Pane has come aboard the roster of integrated content Humble, landing his first U.S. representation for commercials, branded content and music videos. He continues to work independently via his own production/creative studio, abstr^ct:groove.
The Italian director’s work is characterized by a sensual fusion of auto, fashion, and beauty–drawing inspiration from art house films as well as classic live action style. He comes to Humble with a vast body of work consisting of commercials, original content, video installations, and short films highlighting a rigorously studied style all while maintaining a cutting edge visual perspective.
Humble president/owner Eric Berkowitz said of Pane, “Everything from cars, to fashion, to avant-garde storytelling–this man brings the heat in true Italian form.”
Born in Naples, the young artist moved to Milan to study design at the Politecnico di Milano. At the onset of his career, the director hit the ground running, collaborating with brands like Dolce & Gabbana, Diesel, Pirelli, Ray-Ban, and Persol and quickly gaining widespread recognition for his work.
Pane received an Epica d’Or at the Epica Awards for his work on a short film for Diesel, Explorers of the Past and Future, in 2008, Special Prize at the Milan International Film Festival for his architectural mapping project “Building Urban Motion,” and Special Recognition at the London International Awards and PIVI awards for his collaboration with artist Franky B, aka Cryptic Monkey, on the surreal music video “Vesuvius Bunks.”
Review: Malcolm Washington Makes His Feature Directing Debut With “The Piano Lesson”
An heirloom piano takes on immense significance for one family in 1936 Pittsburgh in August Wilson's "The Piano Lesson." Generational ties also permeate the film adaptation, in which Malcolm Washington follows in his father Denzel Washington's footsteps in helping to bring the entirety of The Pittsburgh Cycle — a series of 10 plays — to the screen.
Malcolm Washington did not start from scratch in his accomplished feature filmmaking debut. He enlisted much of the cast from the recent Broadway revival with Samuel L. Jackson (Doaker Charles), his brother, John David Washington (Boy Willie), Ray Fisher (Lymon) and Michael Potts (Whining Boy). Berniece, played by Danielle Brooks in the play, is now beautifully portrayed by Danielle Deadwyler. With such rich material and a cast for whom it's second nature, it would be hard, one imagines, to go wrong. Jackson's own history with the play goes back to its original run in 1987 when he was Boy Willie.
It's not the simplest thing to make a play feel cinematic, but Malcolm Washington was up to the task. His film opens up the world of the Charles family beyond the living room. In fact, this adaptation, which Washington co-wrote with "Mudbound" screenwriter Virgil Williams, goes beyond Wilson's text and shows us the past and the origins of the intricately engraved piano that's central to all the fuss. It even opens on a big, action-filled set piece in 1911, during which the piano is stolen from a white family's home. Another fleshes out Doaker's monologue in which he explains to the uninitiated, Fisher's Lymon, and the audience, the tortured history of the thing. While it might have been nice to keep the camera on Jackson, such a great, grounding presence throughout, the good news is that he really makes... Read More