People

Jonathan Nossiter

United States

Biography

Prize winning film director Jonathan Nossiter has directed five feature films. The most recent is “Rio Sex Comedy” (2010) starring Charlotte Rampling, Bill Pullman and Irène Jacob, which had its gala premiere at the Toronto Film Festival and has been released in numerous countries. "Mondovino", a human comedy set in the wine world, was nominated for the Palme D’Or in Cannes in 2004 (one of only three documentaries ever nominated in the history of the festival) and was released in over 40 countries. A 10 part series derived from the feature, which he also directed and produced, had its world premiere at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2006. “Mondovino; the Series” was released on DVD by Diaphana in France in 2006, by Kimstin in the US in 2009 and has come out in dvd and on television in over 20 other countries. He co-wrote (with James Lasdun) and directed "Signs & Wonders" (2000), a psychological thriller set in Greece, produced by MK2 and Nick Wechsler, with Charlotte Rampling and Stellan Skarsgard. It was nominated for the Golden Bear at the 2000 Berlin Film festival. "Sunday" (1997), a black comedy he produced, co-wrote (also with Lasdun) and directed about a one day love affair based on a case of assumed identity, starred David Suchet & Lisa Harrow. It won the Sundance Film Festival\'s Grand Jury Prize for Best Film and Best Screenplay and the Deauville Film Festival\'s Grand Prize for Best Film and their International Critics\' Prize and was shown in “Un Certain Regard” at Cannes. He also wrote, produced and directed "Resident Alien" (1991), a feature length comedy mixing documentary and fiction about the end of Manhattan’s bohemia, with Quentin Crisp, John Hurt, Sting and Holly Woodlawn. (rereleased in a new dvd edition in the US in 2006 by New Video.) His non theatrical documentaries include "Losing The Thread" (2001) for RAI in Italy and the Sundance Channel in the US, an hour long film on art fraud, tourism and the elasticity of the male ego in Tuscany (premiere Rotterdam Festival) and  "Searching for Arthur", a look at Arthur Penn, for Telepiu\'s series "Directors on Directors" (premiere  Locarno Festival) and “Making Mischief” on the preparations for “Signs & Wonders”. His book “Le Goût & Le Pouvoir” was first published in 2007 by Grasset in France. It won the World Gourmand Award for Best Book of Wine Literature in 2008.  It was published in an English language version as "Liquid Memory"  in 2009 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in the US and in England from Grove Atlantic in 2010. It was published in an Italian edition as “Le Vie del Vino” by Einaudi in 2010 (winner of “Best book on wine and culture” at the Pescara Festival) and by Companhia das Letras in Brazil, as well as editions in Greece, Portugal and Japan. He studied painting at the Beaux Arts in Paris and the San Francisco Art Institute and Ancient Greek at Dartmouth College (Phi Beta Kappa, Senior Fellow.) He worked as an assistant director in English theatre (Newcastle Playhouse, King\'s Head) and for Adrian Lyne on "Fatal Attraction". A trained sommelier, he’s made wine lists for a variety of restaurants in New York, Paris and Rio, including “Balthazar”, “Il Buco,” “Man Ray,” “Roberta Sudbrack” and  “Aprazivel”. The son of journalist Bernard Nossiter, he was born in Washington D.C. in 1961 and grew up in France, England, Italy, Greece and India. An American-Brazilian dual national fluent in six languages, he now lives in Rome with his wife, documentary filmmaker Paula Prandini and their three children.  

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