Electronic Press Kit · 2026
Pietro Mereu
FILM DIRECTOR · AUTHOR
Biography, works, method, quotes, festivals, press coverage and professional materials. An EPK built from documented sources and direct statements.
Press bio
A story before the image
Pietro Mereu was born in Lanusei in 1972. He moved to Milan in 1999 and graduated in screenwriting from Civica Scuola di Cinema in 2003. From 2004 to 2006 he worked as a writer on Markette with Piero Chiambretti. Television taught him rhythm, synthesis and teamwork; documentary became the place where he could stay longer inside a story.
In 2010 he developed Disoccupato in affitto, turning a personal condition into a story about work and precarity. In the following years his films encountered fishermen, former prisoners, centenarians, communities and artisans. He founded ILEX Productions in 2015. Il Club dei Centenari, Il clan dei ricciai and Sonaggios mark three central stages in a body of work linking observation, Sardinia and underrepresented worlds.
Profile
Lanusei · 1972
Education — Civica Scuola di Cinema, Milan · 2003
Fields — Documentary · Writing · Production
ILEX Productions · 2015
“I believe literature has been much more formative for me than cinema, because my approach is always to start from a story. Only afterwards do you think about filming it.”
Satisfiction · Interview with Pietro Mereu
Selected works
Four stages of the journey
An essential selection tracing the evolution from social storytelling to observational cinema.
2012
Disoccupato in affitto
A project born from a personal condition and turned into a journey through Italy and the labour market.
2017
Il Club dei Centenari
Ogliastra, centenarians and longevity become cinematic material and, over time, a field of research and public engagement.
2018
Il clan dei ricciai
Former prisoners, sea-urchin fishing and social redemption: a portrait of people on the margins built from within their places and relationships.
2020 →
Sonaggios
From Tonara workshops to an observational documentary about traditional bell makers, developed within an international production framework.
Method
Observe before filming
Story comes first
Narrative structure precedes the choice of visual form.
Human relationship
Time spent with people reduces the distance between filmmaker and subject.
Details
The eye looks for what may seem marginal but can change the meaning of a scene.
Observation
With Sonaggios the approach moves toward storytelling without front-facing interviews, entrusted to action and presence.
Awards · Festivals · Broadcast
Awards
2017 — Premio AAMOD · Babel Film Festival · Il Club dei Centenari
2018 — Audience Award · Sguardi Altrove Film Festival · Il Club dei Centenari
2018 — Premio UCCA — L’Italia che non si vede · Biografilm Festival · Il clan dei ricciai
2018 — Best Documentary · Nòt Film Festival · Il clan dei ricciai
2020 — Sky Arte · Television premiere of Il clan dei ricciai
Press
External voices
Sentieri Selvaggi · 2020 — “Mereu has the merit of allowing the inexhaustible life force within his characters-as-people to speak for itself.”
L’OFFICIEL Italia · 2022 — Interview tracing the path from Civica film school to documentary as the form capable of synthesising different experiences.
Satisfiction — Interview on the primacy of story, literature as formation and empathy as part of working with protagonists.
Sardegna Film Commission · 2020 — Official press release for the Sky Arte premiere of Il clan dei ricciai.