Martini was born in 1955 and grew up in
Northbrook, Illinois. He attended local public schools. He graduated magna cum laude from
Boston University with a degree in Humanities, attended University of Southern California
Film School and is a 2008 graduate of the
Master of Professional Writing Program at USC. His student short film,
Lost Angels, was the film debut of fellow Chicago native, actress
Daryl Hannah. He took improv classes at
Second City in Chicago under Jo Forsberg, and with the Harvey Lembeck Workshop in Los Angeles. His first documentary film,
Special Olympians, won the top prize at the 1980 Mexico City International Film Festival. He made his feature film directorial debut with ''
You Can't Hurry Love,'' which featured the debut of
Bridget Fonda.
TNT described it as the "quintessential 80's comedy." Martini left USC to work for writer/director
Robert Towne (
Chinatown, Mission: Impossible); he served as an acting coach for
Robert Evans on the original
The Two Jakes. After that Martini wrote his first feature
My Champion, which starred Christopher (son of Robert) Mitchum and Yoko Shimada (Shogun). He wrote the comedy
Three For the Road for Vista Films, which starred
Charlie Sheen. Martini directed a comedy short, "Video Valentino," shot by fellow USC alum
John Schwartzman (DP of
The Amazing Spider-Man) and produced by
Jonathan D. Krane. The short led to a deal with Vestron Pictures, where he made ''You Can't Hurry Love'' starring
Bridget Fonda,
Charles Grodin and
Kristy McNichol based on the short. Martini co-wrote and directed two films for producer
Jonathan D. Krane: the
Faustian comedy
Limit Up, set in Chicago, starring
Nancy Allen and blues icon
Ray Charles, and
Point of Betrayal (1996) starring
Dina Merrill,
Rod Taylor and
Rebecca Broussard, which won the Palm Beach International Film Festival as Best Film. Martini then co-wrote and co-directed
Cannes Man (released on iTunes in 2010) starring
Francesco Quinn and
Seymour Cassel, with appearances by
Johnny Depp and the "cast of characters who inhabit the film festival each year". Martini wrote and directed the
Dogme 95 film
Camera – Dogme #15,shot on digital video; it follows the life of a video camera around the world. He has also directed documentaries:
Tibetan Refugee explores the Tibetan community in Dharamsala,
White City/Windy City explores the relationship between Chicago and Casablanca in the Eisenhower "
Sister Cities" program, and
Journey Into Tibet, follows Buddhist scholar and author
Robert Thurman on a sacred journey around
Mount Kailash in western Tibet. Martini co-wrote and produced
My Bollywood Bride starring Jason Lewis and Sanjay Suri (released as
My Faraway Bride). Martini's television credits include producing segments and appearing on the award-winning
Charles Grodin Show on
CNBC. He wrote an upcoming miniseries for HBO about the notorious
House of Medici. He has also written freelance articles for
Variety,
Premiere,
Inc.com, edited and wrote Epicurean Rendezvous' "Best 100 Restaurants in Los Angeles" and appeared in
USA Today as a commentator about "
American Idol." He also contributed a chapter to
Charles Grodin's book "If I Only Knew Then... Learning from our mistakes." (
Springboard Press.) He worked on the films
Amelia and
Salt as a digital media curator, pioneering a method of pre-visualizing a film online. Film director
Phillip Noyce hired him to work on both films. Based on his documentary about
hypnotherapy and between life therapist Michael Newton's work
Destiny of Souls, Martini's book on the afterlife, ''Flipside: A Tourist's Guide on How To Navigate the Afterlife,
has become a best seller at Amazon. The documentary based on the book was picked up by Gaiam TV for distribution in 2014. The book went to #1 at Amazon in all its genres twice. The series It's a Wonderful Afterlife: Further Adventures into the Flipside Volume One'' and Volume Two includes interviews with Dr.
Bruce Greyson on
consciousness and the
near-death experience,
Gary Schwartz on his research into
consciousness, and
Mario Beauregard on his research in
neurotheology. Martini compares accounts of
near-death experiences with transcripts of
hypnotherapy sessions of people under deep
hypnosis to highlight their similarities. His book "Hacking the Afterlife," examines
mediumship claims of "new information" from people no longer on the planet and compares these accounts to the near death experiences and afterlife reports from subjects under
hypnosis. He also penned "Backstage Pass to the Flipside: Talking to the Afterlife with Jennifer Shaffer" which includes a foreword by
Luana Anders. Martini has taught film directing at
Loyola Marymount University, the
Maine Media Workshops, and the
John Felice Rome Center. He is married and has two children. The family lives in
Santa Monica, California. ==Filmography==