Trivia

Always edited his own films.

A vehement opponent of censorship in all its many forms.

Used to be one of the leading directors of Erotica in Europe.

Russian and Austro-Hungarian background.

Member of the 'Official Competition' jury at the 22nd Berlin International Film Festival in 1972.

Two children: daughter Beatrice and son Bonifacio.

After Salon Kitty (1976) and Caligula (1979), the style of his films gradually changed towards erotic films. Caligula was originally supposed to be a satire on power instead of an erotic film, but the producers changed and re-edited the film entirely without Brass's consent, removing many political and comical scenes, and shooting sexually explicit sequences, to make the film a pornographic drama. The director demanded that his name be stricken from the credits, and he is only credited for "Principal Photography". Despite this, the film remains his most widely viewed work (and the highest-grossing Italian film released in the United States).

Tinto Brass is an Italian film director and screenwriter.

He was married to Carla Cipriani (b. 1930, nicknamed "Tinta"), from 1957 until her death in 2006. Carla was the daughter of Harry's Bar founder Giuseppe Cipriani, who managed the restaurant Locanda Cipriani on the Venetian island of Torcello and also collaborated as a screenwriter in Brass's films. The couple had a daughter, Beatrice, and a son, Bonifacio.

In the 1960s and 1970s, he directed many critically acclaimed avant-garde films of various genres. Today, he is mainly known for his later work in the erotic genre, with films such as Caligula, Così fan tutte (released under the English title All Ladies Do It), Paprika, Monella (Frivolous Lola) and Trasgredire.

Brass' films since his early works follow an impressionistic style - they tend not to show immense landscapes, but bits and pieces of the scenery and peripheral characters and objects through pans and zooms, thus imitating how the viewer might see the events if he were actually present. This also gives the films an extraordinarily rapid pace.

In 1964, Tinto was commissioned by Umberto Eco to create two short films experimenting with visual language for the 13th Triennale di Milano - Tempo Libero and Tempo Lavorativo.

Many of Brass' works qualify as period drama set during World War II (Salon Kitty and Senso '45, set in Berlin and Asolo respectively), in pós-guerra Italy (Miranda and Capriccio), antebellum Italy (The Key), and in 1950s Italy (Paprika and Monella).

Brass' nickname Tintoretto (later shortened to Tinto) was given by his grandfather Italico Brass, a renowned Gorizian painter.

In January 2000 Tinto Brass wrote the preface for Malisa Longo's book Così come sono (Edizioni Pizzonero).

Tinto works with Rossellini as editor of the documentary L'India vista da Rossellini and assistant director on the film Il Generale della Rovere. As assistant director to Joris Ivens he collaborated on the television documentary L'Italia non è un paese povero.

In 2012, Hollywood Reel Independent Film Festival did a retrospective on Brass' early 1960s and 1970s films, screening newly restored versions. The restorations were done in collaboration with Alexander Tuschinski, who in recent years researched Brass' 1960s/1970s works and has been called "the foremost scholastic authority on Tinto Brass".

In December 2012 Tinto wrote the foreword for Federica Tommasi's book "Sette piccoli racconti erotici" (for E.F. Edizioni).

As of 2010, Brass is politically affiliated with the Italian Radicals.

From a Venetian family, after graduating in law, in 1957 he moved to Paris where he collaborated in the activities of the Cinémathèque française directed by Henri Langlois and entered the milieu of the emerging Nouvelle vague, becoming the assistant of Joris Ivens and Roberto Rossellini.

Massimo Bertarelli in Il Giornale defined Brass as an "authentic genius in the discovery, in the broadest sense of the term, of young female shoots".

After Capriccio (1987), Brass's next script was L'uomo che guarda, from the Alberto Moravia novel, which was scheduled to go before cameras in late 1986 or early 1987, but was delayed by seven years.

Tinto Brass defines himself as "quietly atheist".