Bio

After working as an Art Director and Game Designer, Stephane Barbato begins his career as a Director by writing to Ennio Morricone “Maestro, I’ve made a movie because of you, now I need music…” Morricone agrees and composes the original music for his first short film: Play The Game, an English war movie shot in 35mm. The film was selected in many international festivals (Los Angeles City of Angels Lights, Sao Paulo, Manchester…) and won a dozen awards including Best Director and Best European Film at the IFCTAwards in New York. Barbato then directs around fifty commercials with Bandits and works closely with various personalities such as Vilko Filac, Emir Kusturica’s dop, and the young Spanish talent Nilo Zimmerman. Concerned about how cinematography composes the emotion of reality with visual elegance, Barbato is used to direct ads for major causes, narrative, tragic or comic, collecting numerous awards; the film Insoutenable, from the French Road Safety won Grand Prix Strategies, Cristal de la Réalisation, Grand Prix du Festival de Cabourg, Grand Prix de Cannes Media Award in 2020 and Gold at the Cannes Lion 2011 n°1 of the YouTube list (most seen on the internet in 2010). Currently, Barbato co-writes fiction and comedy series projects with Hadrien Cousin. Mad about games and immersive storytelling, Barbato got caught up in the virtual game universe with the Cockatoo Spritz experience by StarVR, the first virtual comedy shot with cinema cameras, which created a buzz in Cannes in 2016. Through the Rob’sMugshots Virtual experience, presented at the Biennale de Lyon 2018, Barbato invites us to smoke a virtual pipe (an international first) which projects the visions of an ex-Amerindian gangster who collected mugshots, siouxpipemaker, arrested 60 times in 80 states (USA 2011, Patron of the South Prize Laureate).