Carlo Vanzina

A number of Italian writer-directors have crossed over in 2000s to the English-language film industry, most notably Gabriele Muccino with the 2006 Will Smith sleeper hit "The Pursuit of Happyness." In the case of Carlo Vanzina, his shot came in 2001 in the form of the romantic comedy "South Kensington," starring Rupert Everett and Elle Macpherson. Although this film also marked the big screen debut of Sienna Miller, it did only moderately well. But for a lifelong Italian industry veteran like Vanzina, this simply meant that he went back to his native language and to making roughly one film a year. A career highlight came at the 2010 Venice International Film Festival, when two of Vanzina's films from the early 1980s screened as part of a larger retrospective honoring Italian comedy. Vanzina comes from a show business family. His late father Steno was a well-known writer-director, and his brother Enrico is a screenwriter.