Matthew Puccini

Matthew Puccini (born c. 1993) is an American filmmaker. He is known for his short films that deal with LGBT-related subject matters.[1] These include The Mess He Made (2017), Marquise (2018), Dirty (2020) and Lavender (2019), the last of which was acquired by Searchlight Pictures (formerly Fox Searchlight Pictures) for an Academy Award-qualifying theatrical run following its Sundance premiere. His work has played at several festivals including Sundance, SXSW, Aspen Shortsfest, Palm Springs ShortsFest, and Outfest Los Angeles. His work has also been featured on Topic and The Huffington Post.[2][3][4][5][6]

Matthew Puccini
Born	1992/1993 (age 28–29) San Francisco, California, U.S.
Nationality	American
Alma mater	New York University (BFA)
Occupation	Director, Producer, Writer, Editor
Years active	2010–present
Website	http://www.matthewpuccini.com

Life and career

Puccini grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2015, while attending New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, he made his first film as writer and director, Solo, which starred Tommy Nelson and Matthew Mindler. It earned Puccini the King Award for Screenwriting at NYU’s First Run Film Festival and won the 2017 Golden Reel Award for Best Student Film at the Tiburon International Film Festival.[7][8]

After graduating from NYU that year, he went to work for “an extremely demanding producer,” in order to make his next film, The Mess He Made, which showed the experience of waiting for the results of an HIV test through the eyes of a man, played by Max Jenkins.[9][10] The film premiered at SXSW in 2017, where it became a finalist for the Iris Prize. That same year, Puccini became a member of the 2017 New York Film Festival Artist Academy, a Richie Jackson Fellow at Tisch School of the Arts and a Creative Culture Fellow at the Jacob Burns Film Center. He then produced two more short films, Stumped and Marquise, the latter of which was acquired for streaming by Topic Studios.[11]

In 2018, Puccini was named a Sundance Ignite Fellow.[12] This and the successes of his films gave Puccini enough leverage to create a Kickstarter campaign in order to fund Lavender, which he then produced later that year, starring Michael Hsu Rosen, Ken Barnett and Michael Urie. The film was nominated for both Sundance's Short Film Grand Jury Prize and Vimeo’s Best Drama of 2019, and won the Here Media Award for Best Queer Short Film at the Provincetown International Film Festival.[13]

His most recent film, Dirty, premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Jury Award for Best Short Film, and then screened virtually at SXSW, in which the physical screening was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[14][15] However, the film still got nominated there for the Grand Jury Award for Narrative Short and received a Special Jury Award for the performances of the film's two stars, Manny Dunn and Morgan Sullivan.[16][17] It then went on to play at BFI Flare, Outfest Fusion, Atlanta Film Festival and the Palm Springs ShortsFest.[18][19] In October 2020, the film's streaming rights were acquired by The Criterion Channel.[20]

Puccini, as of now, lives in Los Angeles, and is currently in development on his first feature film and in post-production on the short documentary, Queer/Elder, which will be released in 2021.[21]

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2013	A Fiberglass Affair	Editor	Narrative short
2014	Do Us Part	Editor	Narrative short
2014	Anchovies	Editor	Narrative short
2015	Backyard Portal	Editor	Narrative short
2015	Solo	Director, writer	Narrative short
2016	Where People Hide Away	Editor	Narrative short
2016	Burning Child	Editor	Narrative short
2017	The Mess He Made	Director, writer	Narrative short
2017	Stumped	Director, writer, editor	Narrative short
2018	Marquise	Director, writer, editor	Documentary short
2019	Lavender	Director, writer	Narrative short
2020	Dirty	Director, producer, writer	Narrative short
2021	Queer/Elder	Director	Documentary short

Awards and nominations

Film festival awards

Year	Festival	Film	Award	Result	Notes
2016	NYU First Run Film Festival	Solo	King Award for Screenwriting	Won
2017	Tiburon International Film Festival		Golden Reel Award for Best Student Film	Won
	SXSW Film Festival	The Mess He Made	Grand Jury Award for Narrative Short	Nominated
	Sarasota Film Festival		Grand Jury Prize - Narrative Short Competition	Nominated
2019	Sundance Film Festival	Lavender	Grand Jury Prize - Short Film	Nominated
	Sarasota Film Festival		Grand Jury Prize - Narrative Short Competition	Nominated
	SXSW Film Festival		Grand Jury Award for Narrative Short	Nominated
	Provincetown International Film Festival		Here Media Award - Best Queer Short Film	Won
2020	Sundance Film Festival	Dirty	Grand Jury Prize - Short Film	Nominated
	SXSW Film Festival		Grand Jury Award for Narrative Short	Nominated
	Palm Springs International ShortFest		Best LGBTQ+ Short	Nominated
	Montclair Film Festival		Fiction Shorts Competition	Nominated

References

1. "Matthew Puccini". Filmmaker Magazine. Retrieved 2020-06-03.
2. About — Matthew Puccini
3. Alumni Spotlight - Matthew Puccini — NFFTY
4. Matthew Puccini
5. Sundance: Fox Searchlight Buys ‘Lavender’ With Michael Urie – Variety
6. "Michael Urie Heads Gay Throuple in Evocative Fox Searchlight Short 'Lavender' — Watch". IndieWire. 2019-05-15. Retrieved 2020-06-03.
7. "2016 Wasserman Awards". NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Retrieved 2020-12-25.
8. "2017 Golden Reel Awards". Tiburon International Film Festival. Retrieved 2020-12-25.
9. "Watch This Short Film on the Terror of HIV Tests, 'The Mess He Made'". www.advocate.com. 2017-12-01. Retrieved 2020-12-25.
10. "'High Maintenance' Star Max Jenkins Sheds the Laughs in Poignant Short Film About Waiting for an HIV Test — Watch". IndieWire. 2017-12-01. Retrieved 2020-12-25.
11. "Fox Searchlight acquires Matthew Puccini's 'Lavender' Short Film". The Wrap. 2019-01-25. Retrieved 2020-12-25.
12. "Sundance Institute Announces 2018 Sundance Ignite Fellows". Sundance Institute. 2019-01-25. Retrieved 2020-12-25.
13. Torch Song’s Michael Urie and Michael Hsu Rosen Reunite in Short Film Lavender at Sundance | Playbill
14. "2020 Sundance Preview: 10 Must-See Short Films in Park City". IndieWire. 2020-01-23. Retrieved 2020-06-03.
15. "SXSW Film Festival Shorts To Stream On Mailchimp Presents". Deadline. 2020-03-05. Retrieved 2020-06-03.
16. "The 2020 SXSW Film Festival Announces Jury and Special Awards". SXSW. 2020-03-24. Retrieved 2020-06-03.
17. "SXSW 2020: Best Short Films Streaming Online". The Young Folks. 2020-05-09. Retrieved 2020-06-03.
18. "Palm Springs ShortFest Selects 2020 Films". Palm Springs Life. 2020-06-05. Retrieved 2020-06-05.
19. "Take a look: ShortFest announces lineup of 332 short films". Palm Springs Desert Sun. 2020-06-04. Retrieved 2020-06-05.
20. "October 2020 Programming on the Criterion Channel Announced". Criterion Cast. 2020-09-24. Retrieved 2020-12-25.
21. About — Matthew Puccini

External links

• Matthew Puccini at IMDb
• Matthew Puccini Mubi
• Matthew Puccini website