John Real

Giovanni Marzagalli, who goes by John Real (because apparently, Italians need a Hollywood name to make it big), has been shaking up the Italian movie scene for a while now. He’s from Catania, not some posh film school in Rome, and he’s got this knack for mixing American blockbuster vibes with good old Italian flair. People started paying attention back in 2011 when, at just 21, he grabbed the Golden Globe for Best Breakthrough Director with "Native." That made him Europe’s youngest director to snag the award, and honestly, Italians don’t hand those out for fun. The movie even got a spot at the Venice Film Festival, which is basically the Oscars of pasta and cinema, and kicked off the Fantasy Horror Awards that year. By 2012, John wasn’t slacking—he set up Real Dreams Entertainment and jumped straight into making "Midway Between Life and Death," a thriller with enough twists to keep you guessing if you’re even alive by the end. Critics ate it up, especially the mashup of suspense and the weird paranormal stuff that Italians secretly love. The film was one of only seven repping Italy at the 2014 Oscars. Real started rubbing elbows with legends like Dario Argento and Ruggero Deodato, picking up the IHF 2014 award, which is basically the horror director’s secret handshake. His TV series "Feel the Dead - Five Days" raked in five Oniros awards, and his horror film "The Music Box" plus the psychological trip "Obsessio" kept the trophies piling up. Now, his next big thing, "The Last Redemption," is in post-production and has the sort of buzz you can’t buy. If this guy isn’t the new face of Italian genre cinema, I don’t know who is.