Lamberto Sanfelice

Italian filmmaker Lamberto Sanfelice's talent for intimate, personal dramas about young people helped him quickly rise up the ranks of his country's film industry from just a handful of short films to his first feature, "Chlorine" (2015), which enjoyed an American premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in 2015. After completing a pair of short films as part of his film studies at New York University, Sanfelice returned to Italy, where he began directing web content for the media entertainment entity ANG Film. When the company teamed with Asmara Film, an Italian-based film production and distributing shingle, to try its hand at feature films, they tapped Sanfelice to direct one of their first titles, "Il fischietto" (2012), a short drama about a young girl's life in the wake of her parents' deaths, funded in part by the country's Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities of Italy (MiBAC). All three entities reunited in 2012 to produce "Chlorine," Sanfelice's first feature film effort. The story, about a teenaged Italian girl who pursues her dream of competitive synchronized swimming despite overwhelming opposition, was selected for competition in the World Cinema Dramatic section of the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.