Andrea Benjamin Manenti, an Italian-Filipino filmmaker, was born in 1991. He trained at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia – Scuola Nazionale di Cinema in Rome, where he studied cinematography under the guidance of Giuseppe Lanci. He completed his studies with a Master’s in Research and Photographic Narration under the mentorship of documentary photographer Lina Pallotta. In 2020, he began developing Cosmogonia, a long-term project exploring themes of youth identity and union with the sacred. Through a “cross-disciplinary” approach, it seeks to connect various media: reworked archival material, analog photography, artificial intelligence, collage, and writing. As a director of photography, he has worked on several feature debuts, including Una sterminata domenica by Alain Parroni, produced by Fandango and Road Movies, Wim Wenders’ company, which received the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival 80th in the Orizzonti section and the FIPRESCI Prize, and was selected at the 43rd Toronto International Film Festival. He then worked on L’origine del mondo, the debut film of director Rossella Inglese. He is preparing to direct his debut feature, a family comedy set in the Philippines, titled I Have to Fuck Before the World Ends, with artistic supervision by director and producer Carlo Hintermann.
