Gerdi Petanaj
Film Director, Video Artist
Gerdi is a multidisciplinary filmmaker born in Albania and raised in Italy, currently living in Cyprus. During his academic studies in Rome, he shot his first short movies, which screened worldwide, winning the 'Omaggio a Michelangelo Antonioni' award in 2012 with his short 'Quando d'improvviso affondai tra le nuvole.' In 2016, he participated in the 73rd Venice Film Festival with 'egh-ovalis,' an experimental film project with Emiliano Montari and Enrico Ghezzi, from which he made the ongoing documentary 'Venezia 73.' In 2017, he showed a paradoxical immersive superfilm at the Gagosian Gallery in Rome, influenced, among others, by the unedited documentary on the artist Miltos Manetas and other contemporary Rome-based artists. He has participated in Manifesta 12 and other international art events. His practice spans across cinema, art, and video, driven by the exploration of the push-and-pull between illusion and disillusion.