Emiliano Mancuso

Born in Rome in 1971, Emiliano Mancuso was a photographer and director who focused his investigative work on current issues, above all the invisible ones without a voice.
After receiving a degree in philosophy, Emiliano Mancuso chose to dedicate himself to photography as a means to document contemporary society and the critical issues it is facing, first traveling at length in the Amazon, then focusing primarily on portraying ltaly and its contradictions.
In 2006, he published his first book Made in ltaly (ed. Trolley Books), for the centenary of the CGIL (The ltalian Generai Confederation of Labor), and in 2008 Terre di Sud (ed. Postcart) was published: a diverse and multicolored portrait on the Mezzogiorno (Southern ltaly), stili struggling with the old, never resolved “issue of the south” in the third millennium. ltaly and its problems were the subject of a new course of research and study. Accompanied by four journalists, he canvassed ltaly according to thematic issues: hydrogeological instability, immigration, the political and institutional crisis, and poverty – an issue the photographer was very sensitive about and one he would revisit as a director, in various forms, in subsequent documentaries. His work was published in the book Stato d’Italia (2011, ed. Postcart). An impassioned lecture, he became Director of the Masters Course in Contemporary Photojournalism at Officine Fotografiche Roma.
He worked regularly with leading national and international publications.
In 2012, without ever abandoning photography, he dedicated himself to audiovisual communication and documentary filmmaking.
In 2014, he made his first documentary, Il diario di Felix (The Felix Diaries), shot entirely at Casa Felix, a group home in the outskirts of Rome that takes in minors with family and legal problems. The documentary was selected for the 2015 Festival dei Popoli in the Panorama section and nominated tor a Globo d’oro award for best documentary film in the same year.
In 2018, in collaboration with Federico Romano, he made the documentary film Le cicale, an intimate journey into the lives of people who have already gone into retirement, or will soon do so, who find themselves fighting to survive rather than enjoying their golden years in peace. The documentary was selected at the 2018 edition of the Visioni dal mondo Festival.
Emiliano Mancuso died prematurely and suddenly in September 2018.