Vito Brancato…
…is a screenwriter, award winning filmmaker and the author of the historical crime thriller Princes & Thieves and the half-hour docudrama companion piece…
WATCH THE DOCUDRAMA
BUY THE BOOK
First, he wrote the screenplay, a series about how the lives of JFK, Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe and Sam Giancana intertwined to sway the 1960 presidential election and changed the course of American history. Then Brancato adapted it into a novel with all the dialogue intact – each episode (10) of season one becoming a chapter in the book version.
Winner of several festival awards including the prestigious Silver Remi at Worldfest Houston, Vito Brancato’s film Driving John Lennon lets viewers eavesdrop on a dramatic and revealing conversation between rock and roll’s two biggest icons.
Based on true-life characters and actual events, Vito Brancato wrote and directed this gritty, low-budget crime thriller about a botched Mob jewelry heist and the bloody and political aftermath that followed. THE DEAL was shot completely on location in Chicago in a record 13 straight days and premiered at NYC’s IFP in the summer of 1998.
Set on the outskirts of Chicago’s infamous West Side (in a building once owned by Al Capone), Brancato’s old-world coffee house doubles as his production office and served as an authentic film set for his dark comedy Gangster Café. The series follows a local crew of hoodlums who use a coffee shop as a front for their criminal activities – while a bumbling (and sex addicted) FBI agent stumbles onto their scheme to smuggle heroin in bags of espresso beans.
Brancato indulged his love for jazz when he wrote, produced and directed this 2010 long form music video about a small-town girl with a big voice who competes in an open mic competition in a rough Chicago night club. Andrea Prestinario belts out a powerful version of the George Gershwin classic…SUMMERTIME
