Giovanni Morassutti is an Italian actor, theatre director, writer, artist and artistic director.
Background
Ethnicity:
He is the son of a German mother and an Italian father.
Giovanni is the son of Benedetto Morassutti and Sabine Piwko. His paternal great-grandfather, Federico Morassutti, was an Italian entrepreneur and philanthropist, while his great-grandmother, Emilia Buzzaccarini, was from the ancient noble family of Padua. His maternal grandfather was a doctor. On his mother's side, he has one cousin, Benjamin Piwko. He has appeared in more than 20 films since 2001. He is the founder of the international art residency Art Aia - Creatives / In / Residence and project space Art Aia - La Dolce Berlin. As a theatre actor and director, he has been working in several productions that have been presented in Italy, Sweden, and the United States.
Education
Giovanni began to study acting at the age of 15 during a workshop with Susan Strasberg. At 18 years old he moved to New York City to become a professional actor. During his first year in the city, he was an intern at the Actors Studio and, eventually, he became a student of Salem Ludwig. He attended the HB studio in Greenwich village studying acting and directing. At age 21 he moved back to Europe where he lived between Paris and Rome. He went back to New York at the end of year 2001 where he met John Strasberg, son of Lee Strasberg with whom he has been studying and collaborating as a coordinator for his workshops in Italy and lately also in Berlin. In 2004 Morassutti returned to Italy where he was admitted to the National Film School in Rome directed by actor Giancarlo Giannini.
Career
During his early years, Giovanni appeared as an actor in off-broadway theatre productions, working with La Mama e.t.c., as well as in student films in Rome, Paris and New York. In 2004 he was cast in the movie Last Days directed by famous director Gus Van Sant. After graduation from the Experimental Centre of Cinematography, he was cast in several roles in theatre, film and television, working with Fabio Jephcott, Roberto Faenza, Cinzia Th. Torrini, Andrea Manni, Stefano Usardi, Matteo Corazza, Lidia Biondi, Harris Freedman, Riccardo Milani, among others. In parallel to his work as an actor, he has also started to teach several workshops of acting in English.
Giovanni Morassutti is also a theatre director. He has been assisting several directors, including Harris Freedman and Marco Calvani and, in 2012, he has been directing Sola in Casa (Alone at Home) by Dino Buzzati starring Lydia Biondi that has been presented at the Cherry Lane Theatre of New York. He also directed the production of Madre sin Panuelo sponsored by the Argentinian Embassy and written by Jorge Palant. The play was presented in Rome and Milan in the fall of 2015.
In 2016 he went back to film acting and, in Berlin, he was cast, among other projects, in For the Time Being directed by Daniela Lucato that was presented at the 71st edition of the Cannes Film Festival.
Giovanni Morassutti is also the artistic director of Art Aia - Creatives / In / Residence which is an international art residency where he invited to work international teaching artists like John Strasberg and Italo-Palestinian artist Mustafa Sabbagh in 2014. He also hosted several artist collectives supporting them in the development of their work with exhibitions and open studios. In 2016 Giovanni Morassutti founded in Berlin the project space Art Aia-La Dolce Berlin, sharing many crossovers with the Italian headquarters, including facilitation of cultural activities and an interest in cultural research and artistic experimentation. In 2016 he wrote the preface of the Italian version of John Strasberg's book Accidentally on Purpose. Currently, he is working on the post-production of his first documentary film Personal Dream Space based on the work of the realistic school of acting. In 2021 he won the Empty Space Film Festival award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Lola. Also, he is competing for the David di Donatello Award for his role in Affittasi vita. As a director, he is in charge of the Berlin unit of The Lonely Child produced by multi-award-winning director and executive producer Marc Smolowitz.
Personality
As an actor, he often plays emotionally troubled characters.
Quotes from others about the person
His mentor John Strasberg spoke glowingly of his protégé: "Giovanni was very serious studying in New York and suffered a lot I think. When my work really, really has value is not just somebody who is learning how to act is someone who is actually discovering himself and their own creative process and I think that Giovanni is one of those people where that was what happened. That is the reason why we still know one another and why I am here."
Italian film critic Concita Occhipinti was moved to say: "Morassutti is a particular actor with masterful vocal and acting abilities and he is very close to Giancarlo Giannini since he studied with him at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia."
South-American journalist and theatre critic Ernesto Pérez saw him capture the essence of a tense drama: "In staging Madre sin Panuelo the young Morassutti demonstrates his gift of enlivening a claustrophobic scene."
Director Vito Pagano was gushing in his praise when he said: "Giovanni Morassutti as the leading actor in my movie Amigdala performed the miracle. In the long-shot monologue, he gave me what I wanted. Actually, he gave me a better performance than I had imagined."