Thomas Torelli is a Rome-based director and producer of films and documentaries, with a strong focus on projects related to social themes. With a long background as an editor and executive producer, Thomas founded Xtend in 2001, a company operating in the field of production and post-production for film and television, and later Telemaco in 2003.
Throughout his career, Thomas has collaborated on various projects in different roles, including editing and post-production, with some of the most notable titles in Italian independent cinema. He was the co-editor of CRAJ, a film that won the Lino Miccichè Award for Best Opera Prima at the Venice Film Festival in 2005. Thomas also directed the post-production of Dall'altra parte della Luna, a rockumentary about the Italian band Negramaro, which was presented at the Venice Film Festival in 2007.
In 2006, Thomas served as the executive producer and co-author of the feature documentary ZERO: An Investigation into 9/11, which explores the contradictions and omissions in the official version of events surrounding the attacks. The film, which features presentations by Nobel Prize winner Dario Fo and American literary icon Gore Vidal, was presented at the International Film Festival of Rome in 2007 and won the Audience Award at the Festival Internacional de Cine Documental de la Ciudad de México in 2008. ZERO has been distributed in over 70 countries and has become a symbol of the struggle for truth about September 11th.
As a producer, Thomas has worked on several documentaries, including Pablo - The poet's lives, a journey to the memory of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, which was presented at the AFI Film Festival of Los Angeles in 2005 and the Montreal Film Festival in 2006. He also produced Francesca Nava's L'altro Messico – Il ritorno del Subcomandante Marcos, which donated 50% of its profits to the Zapatista communities. Thomas produced Mario Balsamo's Sognavo le nuvole colorate, a documentary about the history of Edison Duraj, a nine-year-old Albanian child who emigrated to Italy on a raft alone without his parents. The film was presented at the 2008 Locarno Film Festival.
In 2009, Thomas produced and directed Sangue e Cemento, the first documentary about the earthquake in Abruzzo, which was released in theaters and nominated for Best Documentary of the Year at the Nastri d'Argento awards. He co-edited and produced The brat syndrome, a documentary about ADHD, with the contribution of the Piedmont Film Commission. Thomas has recently completed directing the documentary Another World, a journey through science and consciousness, individual and planetary, exploring our relationships with ourselves, the world around us, and the universe as a whole.
Thomas is currently working on the production of the film documentary Serial Killers, with the objective of completing the project by the end of 2014.
