Paolo Cavara
Paolo Cavara (4 July 1926 – 7 August 1982) was an Italian screenwriter and film director. He is best known for collaborating with Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco E. Prosperi on the 1962 mondo film Mondo Cane, and for directing the fiction film The Wild Eye (1967) and two giallo films, Black Belly of the Tarantula (1971) and Plot of Fear (1976). Biography During the 1950s, he studied architecture at the University of Florence, after which he produced documentaries for scientific voyages of exploration, and emerged as a pioneer of underwater cinematography (one of these voyages was the important 1951 expedition to Ceylon along with Franco Prosperi documented by local news, that anticipated Folco Quilici’s Sixth Continent experience). Next, Cavara worked on a series of Italian National TV films led by Giorgio Moser. He also worked as an assistant director (Timbuctu and Naked Maya, a 1958 production by Henry Koster). In 1962, Cavara conceived with Gualtiero Jacopetti and directed the first shockumentary in history: Mondo Cane, while Prosperi was credited as second director. For the film, Cavara traveled to every part of the world, from Africa to Asia, Europe to Japan, putting his life continually in danger. He shot most of