fran@francescarizzo.com

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The multi-media works of Francesca Rizzo

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    Harvard Film Archives.png
    Harvard Film Archives.png
    NY International Fest.jpg
    NY International Fest.jpg
    Cinekink Film Festival.jpg
    Cinekink Film Festival.jpg
    East Village Film Festival.jpg
    East Village Film Festival.jpg
    NJSCA Award.jpg
    NJSCA Award.jpg
    Chicago Film Fest.jpg
    Chicago Film Fest.jpg
    East Village Film Festival.jpg
    East Village Film Festival.jpg
    Boston College.jpg
    Boston College.jpg
    Moviemaker Mag.jpg
    Moviemaker Mag.jpg
    More Magazine.jpg
    More Magazine.jpg
    Rahway International Film Festival.jpg
    Rahway International Film Festival.jpg
    Turnip Theater Festival 2.jpg
    Turnip Theater Festival 2.jpg
    Harvard Film Archive.jpg
    Harvard Film Archive.jpg
    Stepping Stone Film Festival.png
    Stepping Stone Film Festival.png
    Skyfest.png
    Skyfest.png
    Sundance Institute.jpg
    Sundance Institute.jpg
    NJSCA Award.jpg
    NJSCA Award.jpg
    Film Fest New Haven.jpg
    Film Fest New Haven.jpg
    Chicago Film Fest.jpg
    Chicago Film Fest.jpg
    Radio Mercury Awards.jpg
    Radio Mercury Awards.jpg
    London International Awards.jpg
    London International Awards.jpg
    Clio Awards.jpg
    Clio Awards.jpg
    Cannes Lion Award.jpg
    Cannes Lion Award.jpg
    AIB Awards.jpg
    AIB Awards.jpg
    Ad Age Award.jpg
    Ad Age Award.jpg
    Telly Award Silver.jpg
    Telly Award Silver.jpg
    Action on Film Fest.jpg
    Action on Film Fest.jpg
    Promax BDA AWARD.jpg
    Promax BDA AWARD.jpg
    Harvard Film Archives.png
    Harvard Film Archives.png
    NY International Fest.jpg
    NY International Fest.jpg
    Cinekink Film Festival.jpg
    Cinekink Film Festival.jpg
    East Village Film Festival.jpg
    East Village Film Festival.jpg

    You may be wondering how the hell one person could end up with a body of work so, shall we say, schizophrenic. I swear, it's not my fault. I will attempt to explain how this all came about.

     

    I was highly unsupervised as a child. And, often, left to my own devices.

     

    Apparently I was a "surprise" baby

    and burst onto the scene just in time

    to ruin my mother's social life

    and irritate my much older siblings.

     

    It seemed that anytime I attempted to 

    breathe, I was leaning on a lot of

    last nerves.

     

    Therefore, as a kid I spent an inordinate amount of time alone reading and drawing, holed up in a place where others in my family rarely ventured. To 

    me it was a fabulous art studio, think tank, rehearsal space, writer's room and secret experiment laBORatory rolled into one.

     

    To everyone else it was … the basement.

     

    Semi-finished, it sported a lovely linoleum floor and charming light oak paneling on most of the walls - a pile of 2 x 4’s and panelling sheets sat stacked in the corner for years. But it was as cavernous as my imagination and willingly allowed itself to be morphed into a concert hall for Beatles lip-synch extravaganzas, a writer's room where I would pen custom episodes of my favorite TV Westerns, a summer camp for the neighborhood toddlers my mother found annoying and a town devoted solely to Barbie, her lover Ken and their illegitimate (and oddly huge) child, Betsey Wetsy. 

     

    I was dementedly curious, about EVERYTHING.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    I misappropriated one of my parents' medical encyclopedias and after lingering over the mesmerizing photos of elephantiasis and leprosy, I decided to focus my keen mind on the ever-popular “appendectomy.” There was a surprisingly detailed step-by-step pictorial of the entire surgical procedure.  

     

    Once I had committed them all to memory I announced my newfound ability to perform appendectomies to my mother. Not only was she not amused, she was not even remotely interested.

     

     

    It was then that I made

    the wise decision to use

    this skill sparingly. I would

    perform the operation

    ONLY if the situation

    absolutely REQUIRED it.

     

     

    Like on a desert island.

     

     

    The only time I would leave my laBORatory was at dinner time when I was allowed to take my meals on a small folding table 11 inches away from the TV set.  Away from the adults who always had important things to discuss and were distracted by my chewing.

     

    I spent the next few hours and most weekends watching and rewatching every Marlene Dietrich and Mae West movie ever made. I now see that this surely cemented the probability that marriage and kids would not be in the cards for me.

     

    Bed-time meant putting on my jammies and snuggling under the covers just in time to catch “Johnny Carson” before hitting dreamland. My mother had given me my very own portable TV set, with a huge 7" screen.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    I would speculate that I was the only student at George Washington Elementary School who was dependent on The Tonight Show sign-off every night to lull her to sleep. Unfortunately, my tv set sat across the room and the only drawback was that I had to get up and run across the room to turn it off just as the Star Spangled Banner started to play.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    The next morning, I would stagger into grade school, blousey and bleary-eyed, wondering if 'anyone happened to catch Pete Barbutti playing his broom on Carson last night?' 

     

    Huh?

     

    "What's a Pete Barbutti?"

     

    Blank stare.

     

    "What's a Carson?"

     

    Cricket.

     

    So, you see, I was just a victim of being born wrong place, wrong time.

    I was only nine years old and, already, I was too hip for the room.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Undiagnosed ADHD took it's toll, and I limped through grade school, junior high and high school, raking in all A's in the arts but just squeaking by in the other subjects. I was forbidden to go to art school in New York by my fear riddled mother, convinced I'd be dead in a week. So I applied and was accepted at the very cool Silvermine avante garde art college nestled in the Connecticut woods.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    In the back seat of our car as it pulled out of the parking lot, I sat flushed - my head pulsing after my successful interview with the Dean.  My mother turned around as my dad drove, and said, "Don't even THINK of going there."

     

    I was floored. "WHY NOT???" I whined. It wasn't in the big bad city, it was surrounded by nature and wholesome barns and farm houses. What was so horrendous about it?

     

    "There's hippies there," she said flatly. And turned back around to read a magazing as we made the long drive back to New Jersey.  Subject closed.

     

    "Great," I thought. "It's 1969, where the HELL are we gonna find an art school with NO hippies."

     

    I gave up on art school.

     

    And, eventually, gave in ... to learning new skills and honing my talent on this amazing, zig-zaggy road through life I've been traveling on ever since.

    1/4

    Gee, Were

    Adam & Eve

    Neanderthal

    or

    CRO-MAGNON???

    .

    THAT

    is a

    Pete Barbutti.

      silvermine college of art  

    – Grace Rizzo

    “Franny's greatest talent has always been

                    ... her ability to amuse herself.”

    About Francesca

    I got this cool cowgirl

    outfit for submitting quietly to having my tonsils out!

    I rented this cool cowgirl outfit

    at a tourist trap somewhere

    in sedona, Arizona.

    .

    I actually OWNED this cool cowgirl 

    outfit. Because by then, I had become

    a real live Manhattan cowgirl.

     

    .

    My Basement Laboratory

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Fine Artist

    Display Artist

    Graphic Artist

    Assistant Art Director

    Actor

    Storyboard Artist

    Voice Over Actor

    Copywriter

    Radio Writer/Producer

    On-Air Writer/Producer

    Illustrator

    Author

    Children's Book Author

    Comedy Sketch Writer

    Playwright

    Dramaturg

    Theater Director

    Theater Producer

    Screenwriter

    Filmmaker

    CEO

    Film Educator

    Activist

    Journalist

    Photographer

    Digital Artist

    Videographer

    Digital Editor

    Web Designer

    Trans-Media Maker

    Interior Designer

    Furniture Redesigner

    Proprietor

    Urban Arts Designer

    Arts Community Planner

    Monologist

    Essayist

    Storyteller

    A multi-media artist's trajectory

    begins in intense childhood exploration 

    and is then propelled by

    random creative urges,

    economic need, sudden opportunities, 

    economic need, technological innovation

    and, of course, economic need.

     

    This was my journey.

    An explanation of sorts ...