Gianna Mazzeo
Writer + Director + Filmmaker
Melbourne + Amsterdam
(+31) 6 85 78 83 31
ciao@giannamazzeo.com

One day when I came home from primary school my mum overheard me mispronouncing my surname to a classmate. She pulled me aside. “Gianna, why are you saying your name like that?” Sheepish, I told her that nobody at school could say Mazzeo properly. She rolled her eyes and asked, “Well can they say pizza?” I nodded, confused. “If they can say pizza, they can say Mazzeo.” She was right. “Tomorrow, I want you to go to school and tell your friends that the double ‘z’ is pronounced like pizza.” My mum was a genius. I accepted the challenge. The next day, I went to school and did just as she advised. Shortly after, everyone started calling me Gianna Pizza.

Gianna is an Italian-Australian writer, director and filmmaker based in Amsterdam. She writes within the genres of drama and black comedy, telling stories about her culture, sexuality and the female experience. She cut her teeth as a shopgirl at Civic Video Hampton then studied a Bachelor of Communications (Media) majoring in Cinema Studies at RMIT. After a year-long stint as a full time filmmaker at a video content agency, Gianna has spent the last 9 years as a freelance director making commercials, short films, music videos and documentaries. Her work has featured in Academy Award, BAFTA Award and Canadian Screen Award Qualifying Festivals such as Holly Shorts, St John’s Women’s International Film Festival, Inside Out Toronto, Scottish Queer International Film Festival and St Kilda Film Festival. Her documentary short, ‘The History of the Carabiner’, won the Audience Award prize for Best Short at Inside Out Toronto and her debut short film, ‘Miss Pisces’, was selected by renowned global video channel NOWNESS as a ‘NOWNESS Pick’. Gianna has made ads for brands like Nike, Tesla, Meta, KLM, Xero, Salvation Army and more, and her commercial work has screened at Berlin Commercial.

Gianna is represented by Hooves in Australia, BOLD + Lemonade Reps in London and Holy Fools in the Netherlands.

Gianna works on the stolen land of the Wurundjeri People of the Kulin Nation. She acknowledges the traditional custodians of this land and pays respect to their Elders past, present and emerging. Sovereignty has never been ceded. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land.