After having a "religious experience" while viewing Star Wars for the first time, a young Vincenzo Natali gave up his aspirations to be a comic book artist and decided his future was to be in film. Armed with a Sankyo 40-XL Super-8 camera, Natali and his close friend Andre Bijelic made their first short film when they were 11 years old.

Today, at the age of 28, Natali has finished his first feature film, CUBE, which he wrote with Bijelic and fellow Canadian Film Centre graduate Graeme Manson. In the intervening years, he has written and directed six short films and cowritten three feature-length screenplays. An accomplished storyboard artist, he has worked on several Nelvana animated series and feature films such as Johnny Mnemonic, Blood & Donuts and Bruce McDonald's upcoming Yummy Fur. His short films, Mouth (1992) and Playground (1993), have both been broadcast on the CBC and have traveled extensively on the festival circuit.

As a Resident at the Canadian Film Centre in 1996, Natali completed the highly acclaimed short film Elevated, leading to comparisons with the early work of John Carpenter, Dario Argento and David Cronenberg.

How about those shorts?

See what Vincenzo's wearing in Now Magazine's What I Wear section this week.
[August 28-Sept 3 1997 Vol 16 Number 52]