Biography
Luigi Benvisto is an Italian cinematographer born in Varese, Italy.
His enthusiasm for films was inspired by his father who took him to the theater weekly, cementing his zest for movies. When he was only a few years old he started to lose his hearing. With time more and more frequencies were gone and he had to wear hearing aids since then. Unable to rely on sound, his eyes became the most powerful tool. What he couldn't glean from the auditory conversations, he picked up from visual clues, capturing the slightest changes and facial expressions, diving deep into details and discovering that what you see tells more than what you hear.
Later in life his parents gifted him with a small SD camera and Luigi started shooting short movies and small projects, educating himself to filmmaking and cinematography.
At the age of 25, Luigi's work was noticed by an Italian producer. He moved to Rome to fulfill his passion, where he lived in a garage and worked on movie sets for free.
In 2008 he received a 2-years scholarship to study filmmaking at NYFA. Less than three months later he was in New York City, with very little knowledge of the English language and nowhere to reside.
Having established himself since those years, with a full understanding of the English language, Luigi worked on countless projects, shooting music videos, commercials, features, documentaries and fashion films all around the world. He traveled from Atlanta to Alaska, from Los Angeles to London, from Seattle to New York.
In 2016 he was the cinematographer for the short movie "Cloud Kumo" shot in Hiroshima, Japan, which won the Student Academy Silver Prize and the Golden Eagle Award, fulfilling the dream of visiting the ASC Clubhouse and meeting masters like Dean Cundey, Richard Crudo, Robert Primes and Michael Goi.
In 2018 he briefly returned in Italy to shoot two television series: the first season of "Il Salone delle Meraviglie" for RealTime Discovery and a series of documentaries for "Le Ragazze", hosted by Gloria Guida and airing on RAI 3 during prime time.
He has worked on several movies screened at the most prestigious festivals in the world such as Cannes, TriBeCa, Sundance and David of Donatello.
Luigi is a member of the International Cinematographers Guild IATSE Local 600, the AIC (Association of Italian Cinematographers) and the Imago (European Federation of Cinematographers).
He's also the jury member of the Miami Independent Film Festival.
He lives in the United States since 2008.
