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Isabella Mastrodicasa, Hunting Italian Talent for Hollywood

, by Davide Ripamonti
The Bocconi alumna is a professional in the U.S. movie industry, as she had dreamed of becoming when she visited America as a child


It all began when she was 9 years old, when she went on a tourist trip to the United States to visit some of its landmarks, from the Grand Canyon to Las Vegas and then Hollywood, with its huge film studios. And precisely the movie industry was the reason that pushed Isabella Mastrodicasa, a 30-year-old from Viterbo and Bocconi graduate in Law, to go back to Los Angeles and move there permanently. Today she works as Film & TV Coordinator at Heroes and Villains Entertainment.

"At the age of 18 I left my quiet life in the Italian province to move to Milan, a cosmopolitan reality that was completely new to me," says Isabella. "The years at Bocconi were most formative; it's where I became passionate about criminal law, and then intellectual property law. I had as role model my sister, who was a criminal attorney, but I was also looking for a profession that would nurture my creativity and passion for the arts. At the age of 26 I left for L.A.".

She then did a program in Business and Management of Entertainment at UCLA, worked as an assistant at Verve Talent & Literary Agency, and then met producer Frank Marshall by chance, who hired her at Kennedy Marshall Company. "My role was to look at the projects that were sent to us by Hollywood agents and filter them, to submit to Frank only those that were worth investing in. One of the most exciting moments was when we worked for 'Finding Oscar', the documentary produced by Steven Spielberg about the Dos Erres massacre, perpetrated in Guatemala in 1982. We had to do an amazing job of research and documentation."

For about two years, Isabella has been working as producer and manager at Heroes and Villains Entertainment: "On the one hand, I scout for Italian and European intellectual property that has an international appeal, on the other I manage the careers of directors and screenwriters, their contracts and the choice of projects to work on, and I have a special focus on Italian television formats, movie scripts and film directors."

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