Dante Spinotti, ASC
Biography

Dante Spinotti, ASC, AIC was born in Italy and raised in a rustic environment near Venice. He began taking still photographs and making enlargements in a homemade darkroom when he was about 11 years old. When he was 17, Spinotti went to Kenya where he worked with an uncle who was a documentary and news film director/ cinematographer. He shot his first documentary footage with a handheld, spring-loaded Eyemo camera. After about a year, Spinotti returned to Italy, where he worked on commercials, documentaries and dramas for RAI, the state television network. That led to opportunities to shoot his first features during the early 1980s.

Dino De Laurentiis discovered Spinotti and brought him to the United States to shoot Manhunter in 1986. He subsequently earned Oscar nominations for L.A. Confidential in 1997 and for The Insider in 1999. His body of work also includes Beaches, True Colors, Bandits, The Mirror has Two Faces, The Last of the Mohicans, Blink, Nell, Heat, Wonder Boys and Red Dragon.