Arturo Ambrosio on AllMovie

Producer Arturo Ambrosio is considered to be the father of the Italian film industry. He came to the budding industry via the optical equipment shop he owned. There he began filming and developing documentary films in 1904, and they were the first made in Italy. The following year, Ambrosio founded the first Italian film studio, Film Ambrosio, and continued making documentaries. Eventually he began making fictional features and became known for his epic spectacles, particularly The Last Days of Pompeii (1908). In 1911, the International Exposition in Turin held the first film competition in the world and Ambrosio took home first prize. The next year, he went to Russia and helped found its film industry. In the late 1910s, Ambrosio formed U.C.I., a production company devoted to making spectacles such as Theodora (1919). Unfortunately, they were generally unsuccessful. Ambrosio retired from filmmaking in 1943 after having produced close to 14,000 films.