Born in 1956, he grew up in Bergamo and lives in Turin. Ferrario began working in cinema in the early 1970s as a critic and essayist. He also founded a distribution company that introduced Italian audiences to the work of Fassbinder, Wenders, Wajda, and other major international filmmakers. He later worked as the Italian agent for independent American directors such as John Sayles and Jim Jarmusch. He made his directorial debut in 1989 with La fine della notte, which was named “Best Independent Film” of the season. Since then, he has directed numerous fiction films and documentaries, earning a reputation as one of Italy’s most original filmmakers. His work has been presented in the official selections of major international festivals, including Berlin, Sundance, Venice, Toronto, and Locarno. Dopo mezzanotte (2004) won the Berlin International Film Festival’s Forum section and was a major international success. His most recent works include the documentary Nuovo Cinema Paralitico, featuring poet Franco Arminio, and two feature films released in 2021: Boys, produced by Lumiere&Co, and Blood on the Crown, an international co-production filmed entirely in Malta and starring Harvey Keitel and Malcolm McDowell. Ferrario occupies a unique position within the Italian film scene. A rigorously independent filmmaker, he is not only a director but also runs his own production company, Rossofuoco, with considerable success. Dopo mezzanotte, made on a very limited budget, was a major success in Italy and was sold internationally, as was the documentary La strada di Levi. He is also a novelist: Dissolvenza al nero has been translated into several languages and adapted for the screen by Oliver Parker. Sangue mio, published by Feltrinelli in 2010, won the Bergamo National Fiction Prize. He is a regular contributor to Corriere della Sera and has also published a photography book following his exhibition Foto da galera (2005). In 2015, he was invited to the Venice Biennale of Art, where he presented an original installation featuring Umberto Eco.