Mario Costa (director)
Mario Costa ( born June 1, 1910 in Rome, † 22 October 1995 ) was an Italian film director and screenwriter.
Life
Costa began his career in the 1930s as an assistant editor, production manager, scriptwriter and screenwriter of some films between 1936 and 1938. After a short time as an editor at the Istituto Luce, he quickly became a director of short films. He was with films like Fontane di Roma or I pini di Roma win several awards, so in 1941 at the Venice Film Festival Gold Medal for short films.
In feature films, he made his debut with La sua strada, which he also wrote and cut; after the Second World War, Costa specialized in theatrical versions of operas; from the mid-1950s he devoted his later career in the genre film, where he soundly, but never staged outstanding films. With Buffalo Bill, l' eroe del Far West, he directed ( under the ironic pseudonym John W. Fordson ) one of the first Spaghetti Westerns.
Costa was awarded the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.