Francesco Nuti (17 May 1955 – 12 June 2023) was an Italian actor, film director and screenwriter.
Nuti began his professional career as an actor in the late 1970s, when he took part in the cabaret group Giancattivi together with Alessandro Benvenuti and Athina Cenci.
The group took part in some TV shows for RAI TV, and shot their first feature film, West of Paperino (1981), written and directed by Benvenuti.
The following year Nuti abandoned the trio and began a solo career with three movies directed by Maurizio Ponzi.
Starting in 1985, he began to direct his movies, scoring an immediate success with the films "Casablanca, Casablanca" and "All the Fault of Paradise" (1985), "Stregati" (1987), "Caruso Pascoski, Son of a Pole" (1988), "Willy Signori e vengo da lontano" (1989) and "Women in Skirts" (1991).
The 1990s were however a period of decline for the Tuscan director, with unsuccessful movies such as OcchioPinocchio (1994), Mr.
Fifteen Balls (1998), Io amo Andrea (2000) and Caruso, Zero for Conduct (2001).
In the following years Nuti also started to suffer from depression and alcoholism.
On 2 September 2006, following a severe fall from the the stairs of his home, he had serious cerebral damage, leaving him unable to speak or move.
Nuti died on 12 June 2023, at the age of 68.
The chief commissioner of the homicide squad, with an anti-globalization activist for a son, investigates the suicide of a trade unionist that may be connected to an unsolved political murder of the '70s.
Lorenzo Caruso is a piscologist who lives in a provincial town with his daughter Giulia, the only company since the death of his wife. Suddenly Lorenzo's life is upset by the discovery that Giulia is part of a baby gang: she steals in supermarkets, she has already collected several complaints. Everything Lorenzo has always believed in: communication, understanding, freedom with your daughter is in crisis.
Francesco is a Tuscan who is very good at playing American pool, so much so that he is nicknamed "Mr. Quindicipalle", for the time he performed the unlikely feat of pocketing fifteen (quindici) balls (palle) in one shot, using the wooden handle of a broom as his cue stick. Francesco is also an experienced womanizer, like his recently deceased father. Indeed, Francesco meets the woman of his dreams at his father's funeral – a prostitute who calls herself Sissi. The two fall in love, and so Francesco thinks she might be a lucky charm for him, in his training for a big pool tournament. But Sissi frequently infuriates Francesco, compromising his skill and his training for the tournament.
A coming-of-age story in which a young boy resists the adult world and the inevitable loss of the joys of childhood, while experiencing his sexual awakening during a summer vacation of an island.
A former convict discovers that his son has been adopted by a couple living on the mountains and tries to establish a contact with him
A film of Enrico Berlinguer's funeral in Rome, briefly tracing his career as leader of the Italian Communist Party.
Francesco, nicknamed 'Toscano', is a very good pool player but he never wins when he plays for money. He meets Chiara, a saxophone player, on a late night bus by swapping his case containing the cue with her one, containing the sax. The two fall in love, but in the meantime Francesco loses a big amount of money playing versus 'Scuro', the long-time Italian champion. His only chance to pay the debt is to win the Italian Championships.
It is the first film of the comedy trio "I GianCattivi", formed by Athina Cenci, Francesco Nuti and Benvenuti, who won the Nastro d'Argento for Best New Director. The film is set in Florence, Tuscany, with some scenes shot in Prato.The title is an inside joke that refers to the Tuscan village of Paperino, which is a district of Prato; the film's surreal and grotesque undertones are also hinted by the title itself, since "Paperino" is also the Italian name for Donald Duck.