Simone Bartesaghi

More About Me

Hello and welcome to my SMC Homepage. 

First of all my name is Italian. I was born and raised in Italy. If you are familiar with the Star Wars saga, well the villa where Anakin and Padme kiss, is on the Lake of Como, very close where I was born. (Or if you are familiar with George Clooney, he has a villa there, too).

I grew up in Toscany, on the coast. Just 50 miles away from Florence (Dante, Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci...), 20 miles from Pisa (did you ever heard about the leaning tower?), 80 miles from Cinqueterre.

I always loved writing and telling stories but my life offered me several twists and turns. That's why the highschool I attendend was specialized in Accounting and Computer Programming, and I have a Master's Degree in Economics from the historical University of PIsa. For almost 10 years I ran my own consulting company specialized in Corporate Organization and Planning. Meanwhile I was a part-time journalist, a part-time screenwriter for a private broadcasting and television company and a part-time filmmaker that was shooting shorts over week-ends with friends an family. 

I didn't have a formal education in filmmaking. I was always reading and downloading material from American websites. But I was doing something right because each and evryone of those shorts won festivals and one was even sold to a disribution company (it cost me 50 Euros, and I made 2,000 Euros)

It took awhile and some more twists and turns but finally I was able to get back to my childhood dreams and turn the ship around.

In 2004 I won the Milan Internationl Film Festival and that year the award was a full-scholarship for the 1-year-immersion-filmaking program at the Los Angeles Films School. And so, my wife and I, started a new exciting adventure that was supposed to last 12 months... well, as you can imagine by now, it lasted a bit longer.

(opens in new window) Only four years after my arrival in the United States, I directed my first feature film DOWNSTREAM, that acquired a theatrical release and also received the prestigious Accolade Award.

My second feature RUN, a 3D film that I wrote and directed, has won several prizes including Best Screenplay and Best Emerging Director and is distributed in USA by Millennium. The movie is about the discipline Parkour (Freerunning) with a rich cast including Eric Roberts (The Dark Knight), Adrian Pasdar (Heroes), Kelsey Chow (Pair of Kings) and William Moseley (Chronicles of Narnia). (opens in new window)

RUN is now available on YouTube and has been watched by ore than 9 million viewers. My communicative skills and passion for Filmmaking attracted the attention of my teachers at the Los Angeles Film School where I was also hired to teach a few years after my degree.

One of those teachers, Prof. Salvador Carrasco, is also now the mentor and the friend that invited me to Santa Monica to become a professor and where I have found my true home.

(opens in new window) In order to stay in United State I was blessed with an O1 Artistic Visa and recognized by the Directors Guild of America (DGA) and AMPTP (Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producer) as an artist with "Extraordinary Ability in Directing”.

A few years ago MWP published my book "The Director's Six Senses", an innovative, unique, and engaging approach to the development of the skills that every visual storyteller must have that became an American Best Seller for two years.

In 2018 my wife and I became American Citizen and we live in North Hollywood.

I believe that organization makes creativity work. Preparation in preproduction unleash the best creative process in production.