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Richard Martini

Richard Martini is an award-winning American film director, producer, screenwriter and free lance journalist. He graduated Magna Cum Laude from Boston University with a degree in Humanities, attended USC Film School and is a 2008 graduate of the Master of Professional Writing Program at USC. He took improv classes at Second City in Chicago under Jo Forsberg, and with the Harvey Lembeck Workshop in L.A.Martini grew up in Northbrook, Illinois. His first documentary film "Special Olympians" won the 1980 Mexico City International Film Festival. He then made his feature film directorial debut with the “quintessential 80’s comedy” (TNT) "You Can't Hurry Love," which featured the debut of Bridget Fonda. Martini graduated Magna Cum Laude as a Humanities Major at Boston University, attended USC Film School. His student short film "Lost Angels" was the film debut of fellow Chicago native Daryl Hannah.Martini left USC to work for writer/director Robert Towne ("Chinatown," "Mission: Impossible") and wound up as an acting coach for Robert Evans on the original "The Two Jakes." It was after that Martini wrote his first feature “My Champion” which starred Christopher (son of Robert) Mitchum and Yoko Shimada (Shogun). He then wrote the Charlie Sheen comedy “Three For the Road” for Vista Films.Martini directed a comedy short “Video Valentino” shot by fellow USC alum John Schwartzman (DP of “The Amazing Spider-Man”) and produced by Jonathan D. Krane. The short led to a deal with Vestron Pictures, where he made "You Can’t Hurry Love" starring Bridget Fonda, Charles Grodin and Kristy McNichol based on the short.Martini then co-wrote and directed two films for Producer Jonathan D. Krane ("Look Who's Talking", "Face/Off"): Chicago-set Faustian comedy Limit Up," starring Nancy Allen and blues icon Ray Charles, and "Point of Betrayal," starring Dina Merrill, Rod Taylor and Rebecca Broussard. Martini then co-wrote and directed "Cannes Man" (released on itunes in 2010]) starring Francesco Quinn and Seymour Cassel, with appearances by Johnny Depp and the "cast of characters who inhabit the film festival each year."Martini wrote and directed the Dogme 95 film "Camera – Dogme #15," shot on digital video; it follows the life of a video camera around the world.He's also directed documentaries; "Tibetan Refugee" explores the Tibetan community in Dharamsala, "White City/Windy City" explores the relationship between Chicago and Casablanca in the Eisenhower "Sister Cities" program, and "Journey Into Tibet", follows Buddhist scholar and author Robert Thurman on a sacred journey around Mt. Kailash in Western Tibet.He co-wrote and produced “My Bollywood Bride” starring Jason Lewis and Sanjay Suri (released as "My Faraway Bride.") Among Martini’s television credits include producing segments and appearing on the award-winning “Charles Grodin Show” on CNBC and writing an upcoming miniseries for HBO about the notorious House of Medici. He's also written freelance articles for Variety, Premiere, Inc.com, edited and wrote Epicurean Rendezvous' "Best 100 Restaurants in Los Angeles" and appeared in USA Today as a commentator about "American Idol." He also contributed a chapter to Charles Grodin's book "If I Only Knew Then... Learning from our mistakes." (Springboard Press.)He worked on the films "Amelia" and "Salt" as a digital media curator, pioneering a method of previsualizing a film online, film director Phillip Noyce hired him to work on both films. Based on his documentary about hypnotherapy and between life therapist Michael Newton's work Destiny of Souls, Martini's book on the afterlife "Flipside: A Tourist's Guide on How To Navigate the Afterlife" has become a best seller at Amazon.com and the documentary based on the book was picked up by Gaiam TV for distribution in 2014. The book has gone to #1 at Amazon in all its genres twice. The series "It's a Wonderful Afterlife: Further Adventures into the Flipside Volume One" and Volume Two includes interviews with Dr. Bruce Greyson on consciousness and the Near-death experience, Gary Schwartz PhD's on research into consciousness, Mario Beauregard PhD's research in neurotheology and compares accounts of Near-death experiences with transcripts of hypnotherapy sessions of people under deep hypnosis to highlight their similarities. He's taught film directing at Loyola Marymount University, the Maine Media Workshops and the John Felice Rome Center. He's married and has two children, lives in Santa Monica, California.