Valia Santella

Valia Santella (born 24 May 1965) is an Italian screenwriter and film director.

Valia Santella
Born	24 May 1965 (1965-05-24) (age 60) Naples, Italy
Nationality	Italian
Occupation	Screenwriter

Life and career

Born in Naples, Valia Santella is the daughter of the actors Mario and Maria Luisa Santella [it].^[1] Starting from the 1990 film Matilda by Antonietta De Lillo and Giorgio Magliulo, for about a decade she worked as a script supervisor, becoming a close collaborator of Nanni Moretti.^[1] In 2004 she made her directorial debut with I Can See It in Your Eyes, which premiered at the 61st Venice International Film Festival in the Horizons sidebar.^[2] Starting from Valeria Golino's Miele, she focused on screenwriting, collaborating with Moretti, Marco Bellocchio, Ferzan Özpetek, and Leonardo Di Costanzo, among others.^[1]

Between 2019 and 2020, Santella won the David di Donatello for best screenplay and the Nastro d'Argento in the same category for Bellocchio's The Traitor.^[3][4] In 2022, she won a second David di Donatello for the screenplay of Leonardo Di Costanzo's The Inner Cage.^[5]

Selected filmography

• I Can See It in Your Eyes (2004, also director)
• Miele (2013)
• Me Romantic Romani (2014)
• Mia Madre (2015)
• Pericle (2016)
• Sweet Dreams (2016)
• Red Istanbul (2017)
• Naples in Veils (2017)
• Euphoria (2018)
• The Traitor (2019)
• The Inner Cage (2021)
• Three Floors (2021)
• A Brighter Tomorrow (2023)
• The Art of Joy (2024)