Varo Venturi-Clementini (born 9 August 1956, Rome, Italy) is an Italian film director, writer, actor, musician, author, composer and researcher.

Biography

Son of Vasco Venturi and Maria Rosa Clementini (painter / sculptor and classical pianist), in his youth he was attracted by painting, music, philosophy and communication, revealing an ante-litteram multidisciplinary attitude.
While studying Anthropology, History of Religions and History of Cinema at the University, he works as a photographer for various weekly and plays as a guitarist and multi-instrumentalist, forming several bands between experimental rock and sound research.
Also interested in theater and contemporary poetry, in 1978 he begins an intense collaboration with the Julian Beck's Living Theatre, as a musician and actor, which culminates in the staging of the play "Prometheus", which debuted at the ArgentinaTheatre in Rome.
At the same time with some of the members of the New York theater group he develops an experimental super-8 film and attends the protagonists of the beat generation, including Gregory Corso, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, creating a photographic diary of the new American poetry.
At the turn of the '80s and '90s, after scoring music for works of contemporary theatre, such as "Medea" by Enrico Job, and painting performances, he begins a prolific activity as a musician, artist and composer, producing and writing for various artists.

In 1983 he meets the singer Nada, for which he writes and composes most of the songs of the album "Smalto" and especially "Amore disperato" (Desperate love), which immediately becomes one of the biggest hits of that year, and then an "evergreen" of the Italian pop music, with a lot of covers in Italy and Europe, as well as becoming, for the repeated use in the recent Italian cinema, one of the songs most exploited as film title track of all times, including the blockbuster "Mio fratello è figlio unico" (My brother is an only child).

As an artist, he creates groups as: N.A.T.O. (along with the singer Gianluigi Di Franco); Richter, Venturi and Murru, with whom he participates in the Sanremo Music Festival (1984 competition) with the song "Mondorama", getting a great critical success; the Mondorhama, with which he makes an album, both in Italian and in English, produced and distributed throughout Europe by RCA and Polydor Germany (a synergy between two majors never happened before).

The single "Stories", extracted from the same album, becomes in Italy one of the hits of summer 1985. In 1987, with the singer Liliana Richter, he forms the band "Guernica", with whom he makes two albums (the second one produced by Vasco Rossi for EMI). In the same year, he forms the band "Blossom Child" for which he writes, together with Paolo Fabiani, and produces the song "I Pray", a European success and a Gold record in France, where it is still a cult in every 80s revival.

Since '93, while achieving some international "dance hits ", in synergy with the Expanded Music, proposing a new vision of the so-called "Italian-disco", he produces the album "Orchestra Spettacolo Mariani" for the singer and rapper Roberto Mariani – that includes "Ex", a rap built on an article written by the journalist Giuliano Zincone (participating together with Giuliano Ferrara and Rome's mayor Giusi Nicolini in the video clip of the song) – and three albums for the singer Francesca Schiavo, for which he also writes the song "Il mondo è qui" (The world is here), which participates in the 44th Sanremo Music Festival.

After he engages in the "filmmaker" career, realizing many pop music videos for various artists, and creates a new musical project that produces an album (today still unpublished), in 1997 he officially begins his work as an author and a filmmaker, under construction since ever. He directs and produces the short film "Cosmos Hotel" – made in the newborn support dvcam – awarded in the "Sacher Film Festival" and hosted at the 1997 Locarno Film Festival and Turin Film Festival. The work, hailed as one of the best short films of the year, brings out, through a personal style, the new "digital cinema" of which Varo Venturi can be considered one of the pioneers.

Later, after scoring his second short film, the controversial "Don Giovanni" (in competition at the 1998 "Sacher Film Festival" ), he participates as actor and composer in Franco Bernini's film, Sotto la luna (Under the Moon), and as actor in Peter del Monte's film Controvento (Against the Wind) performing along with Valeria Golino. At the same time, he co-writes with his collaborator Maria Luisa Fusconi (former student of Alessandro Baricco's Holden school), as well as various projects, the screenplay for the film "L'italiano" (The Italian, directed by E. De Dominicis), in which he is also one of the main actors.