About Sebastian Corbascio

Sebastian Corbascio was born and raised in Oakland, California and spent many years of his childhood abroad. These experiences influenced him profoundly.

In the late Seventies, while living with relatives in Italy, Mr. Corbascio was nine years old, but was impacted as all Italian citizens were by the Red Brigade's rampage of terrorism which culminated with the kidnapping and murder of popular statesman Aldo Moro.

During this period, Mr. Corbascio was shuttled back and forth between his aunt and uncle home in Bari and his parents' friends vineyard estate in the Puglia region. He came to know and experience first hand the pride, generosity and spirit of the Italian people. These two seemingly anti-thetical pillars of Italian life inspired "The Sicilian Clans" a story about an organized crime kingpin and a statesman joining forces to combat the most powerful crime family in Sicily.

His follow-up "Samiyan" brings back the same characters to combat nuclear terrorism in the Middle East. "The Sicilian Clans" has gone on to place in the Second Round of the Austin Film Festival's Heart of Film Screenplay Competition.

Mr. Corbascio points to seeing "A Clockwork Orange" at the Elmwood Theatre at the age of fourteen as his "first start" as a film maker. Kubrick's genius affected Mr. Corbascio much more than the sex and violence did. From the first shot, he suddenly became aware that film was much more than a story-telling vehicle, it could be a director's manifesto.

In 1988, Mr. Corbascio attended San Francisco State University, majoring in Creative Writing and took film classes for fun. There, he learned how to make movies the hard way: trial and error. Miles and miles of over exposed, underexposed, out-of-focus Super 8 mm film was the order of the day. He made mostly experimental films (no sync sound for undergrads) with hugh-falutin' concepts and laughable results. But it was all for fun...

In 1989, Mr. Corbascio had a watershed year. This year saw the release of "Do the Right Thing", "Drugstore Cowboy" and "sex, lies, and videotape"; three films which had the same kind of guts that films in the '70's had. The hook was in him and he hasn't looked back since.

Since graduating from San Francisco State University in 1992, Mr. Corbascio has written and directed two shorts ("the altering eye" and "Alex Shlomo is Late to the Airport"), a documentary ("The Wedding Album").

In 2003, Mr. Corbascio's screenplay "Sarah Luger" won Honorable Mention in the Hollywood Gateway Screenwriting Contest. In 2004, his screenplay "The Sicilian Clans" attained second round in the Austin Film Festival's Heart of Film Screenplay Competition. His other screenplays include "eyesight to the blind", "Spare Change", "We Are the Dead" and "Tarantella."

"Sarah Luger" is currently in development with Mr. Corbascio in the director's chair.

Mr. Corbascio's favorite directors include Martin Scorcese, Akira Kurosawa, Micheal Mann, George Hickenlooper, John Woo, Stanley Kubrick, Woody Allen and Orson Welles.

The lovely little girl in these web pages is Mr. Corbascio's niece Tova.