Giovanni Scognamillo

Giovanni Scognamillo — Biography

Born into a family of Italian Levantines in Istanbul on 25 April 1929, Giovanni Scognamillo became a Turkish writer, film historian, critic and academic, and died in the same city on 8 October 2016. Cinema surrounded him from childhood because his father Leone ran the prestigious Elhamra Cinema in Beyoğlu; Leone came of a Neapolitan immigrant line, and Giovanni's mother of the Genoese who had settled Tinos. After studying at the Liceo Italiano, he began writing about film for Italian-language publications before moving into the Turkish press from 1961 onward.

Beyond his landmark history of Turkish cinema, Scognamillo also wrote on fantastique literature and occultism, occasionally appeared as an actor in Turkish films, and worked in fields as varied as banking, advertising, interior decoration and bookselling. His life was the subject of the documentary “Beyoğlu'nda Bir Levanten: Giovanni Scognamillo,” and he was portrayed as a character in Yıldıray Çınar's graphic novel Karabasan.

Since his death, Scognamillo has continued to be honored as a central figure of Turkish film memory, with tributes including a Pera Museum exhibition and an award bearing his name.