Giada Colagrande

Giada Colagrande (born 16 October 1975 in Pescara, Italy) is an Italian‑American film director, screenwriter and actress who has also emerged as a singer‑songwriter under the pseudonym AGADEZ. She began her career in the late 1990s, writing and directing short experimental pieces such as Carnaval (1998) and Fetus – Quattro porta morto (1999), before debuting her first feature film Aprimi il cuore (Open My Heart) in 2002. The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival, received the Prix de l’Avenir at Paris Cinéma and earned her a nomination for the Nastro d'Argento as Best New Director, establishing her as a distinctive voice in contemporary European cinema. Her second feature, Before It Had a Name (2005), co‑written and co‑starred with her future husband Willem Dafoe, screened at Venice and San Sebastián and was released internationally under the title Black Widow. In 2010 she wrote and directed Una donna – A Woman, again collaborating with Dafoe and adding Jess Weixler and Stefania Rocca to the cast; the film continued her strong presence at Venice and other festivals. Between 2012 and 2013 she expanded into short‑form and documentary work, directing the Prada‑commissioned The Woman Dress and the critically acclaimed Bob Wilson's Life & Death of Marina Abramović, later shown at MoMA and the Louvre, and following up with The Abramović Method. Her 2016 feature Padre mixed drama with performance art, starring Franco Battiato, Dafoe and Abramović, and traveled to festivals in Mexico, China and the United States. A retrospective of her oeuvre was presented by Lucca Film Festival in 2017 and by the Roxy Cinema Tribeca in 2018, underscoring her lasting impact. As an actress she appeared in Abel Ferrara’s Pasolini (2014) and Wes Anderson’s short Castello Cavalcanti (2014). Since 2017 she has pursued music, releasing the project The Magic Door and, under AGADEZ, the albums Queendoms (2024) and Queendoms Unplugged (2025) with guitarist Antonio Forcione, affirming her multifaceted artistic identity.