Leo Adam Biga's My Inside Stories

Mauro Fiore is Nebraska’s best-kept secret cinema success story:

The native of Calabria, Italy is one of three Oscar winners residing in Nebraska.

This A-list director of photography is married to an Omaha gal he met on set.

He works with leading Hollywood directors.

He has been the cinematographer for James Cameron on Avatar, Michael Bay on The Island, Joe Carnahan on The A-Team and Smokin’ Aces, Peter Berg on The Kingdom and Wayne Wang on The Center of the World.

His collaborations with director Antoine Fuqua extend over five films, beginning with their breakout project, Training Day, followed by Tears of the Sun, The Equalizer, Southpaw and coming this fall – The Magnificent Seven. Their work together is one of the longest-lived and most successful collaborations between a director and cinematographer in contemporary American cinema.

The art and craft of cinematography is the focus of the July 21 program at Kaneko in the Old Market. I will be interviewing Mauro live on stage for this Inside the Actors Studio-style event featuring clips from his stellar body of work.

Mauro’s journey in film encompasses 30 years. It began with a long apprenticeship. He paid his dues on low budget exploitaion films as a key grip, dolly grip, electrician and gaffer. He crewed on some make-wave films in the early 1990s, such as One False Move and Schindler’s List. His move into camera operating led to doing additional photography on a pair of Michael Bay mega-hits, The Rock and Armageddon. That led to Mauro getting the DP job for Bay’s The Island. He has sometimes worked with his close friend, mentor and colleague Janusz Kaminiski.

Mauro will discuss his approach to lighting sets and photographing scenes as an integral part of the storytelling process. He will also touch on his mentors, collaborators and inspirations. My conversation with Mauro will offer a rare, personal, behind-the-scenes look at how films actually get made and at what goes into capturing the arresting images, performances and physical action bits that entertain or move us and that in some cases become imprinted in our memory and imagination.

Link to my 2009 Reader cover story about Mauro at–

https://leoadambiga.com/…/05/04/master-of-light-mauro-fiore/

Link to a more recent Omaha Magazine piece i did on Mauro and his wife Christine at–

https://leoadambiga.com/…/omaha-couple-mauro-and-christine…/

For event tickets, go to–