Born in
Bobbio, near Piacenza, Marco Bellocchio had a strict Catholic upbringing – his father was a lawyer, his mother a schoolteacher. He began studying philosophy in Milan but then decided to enter film school, first at the Dramatic Art Academy of Milan, then the
Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome, In 1995, he directed a documentary about the
Red Brigades and the kidnapping and murder of
Aldo Moro, titled
Broken Dreams. In 2003, he directed a feature film on the same theme,
Good Morning, Night. In 2006, his film
The Wedding Director was screened in the
Un Certain Regard section at the
2006 Cannes Film Festival. In 1999, he was awarded with an Honorable Prize for the contribution to cinema at the
21st Moscow International Film Festival. In 2009, he directed
Vincere, which was in the main competition at the Cannes Film Festival. He finished
Sorelle Mai, an experimental film that was shot over ten years with the students of six separate workshops playing themselves. He was awarded with the
Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the
68th Venice International Film Festival in September 2011. His 2012 film
Dormant Beauty was selected to compete for the
Golden Lion at the
69th Venice International Film Festival. On 6 September 2012, Bellocchio condemned the Catholic Church's interference in politics after the premiere of his controversial film about a high-profile euthanasia case. The film approaches the topic of euthanasia and the difficulty with
legislation on end of life in Italy, which has
Vatican City within its borders. The subject is inspired by
Eluana Englaro's case. Following the decision of the jury of the Venice Film Festival, which excluded the film from the Golden Lion, Bellocchio has expressed strong criticism against President
Michael Mann.
Political activity Bellocchio made a big impact on radical Italian cinema in the mid-1960s, and was a friend of
Pasolini. In 1968, he joined the
Union of Italian Communists (Marxist-Leninist), a
Maoist group, and began to make politically militant cinema. However, in a 2002 interview, he talked about divided state of the Italian left, politics' lacking from the aim of radical change, and how such a radical change not being appealing for him anymore: {{Blockquote In another interview conducted in
London Film Festival of 2006, he insisted still being a leftist, but argued for a need to reinvent the term: {{Blockquote He was candidate for
Italian Parliament in 2006, with
Rose in the Fist list, a political cartel made by
socialists and
Italian Radicals (a
liberal,
social liberal and
libertarian party). ==Personal life==