Pietro Scalia

Pietro Scalia (born March 17, 1960) is an Italian film editor. He won the Best Film Editing award at the 64th Academy Awards for his work on the film JFK, sharing the award with Joe Hutshing, and at the 74th Academy Awards for Black Hawk Down.

Pietro Scalia
Born	(1960-03-17) March 17, 1960 Catania, Sicily, Italy
Education	University of California, Los Angeles (MFA)

Early life and education

He was born in Catania, Sicily, and later emigrated to Aarau, Switzerland as a child with his parents. There, he attended Swiss-German schools until high school. After graduation, he decided to move to the United States to pursue his college education. He spent two years at the University at Albany, The State University of New York, after which he was accepted as an undergraduate at UCLA. The Swiss government's scholarship helped him through five years of UCLA and in 1985 he earned his Master of Fine Arts from the UCLA Film School.

Career

After his MFA, a couple of short films, a screenplay, two video documentaries, and a 16 mm thesis film, he returned to Europe to pursue his desire to become a film director. Shortly afterward, he returned to the United States on a work visa to pursue his career in Hollywood as a film editor. He began as an editor on Andrei Konchalovsky's Shy People. Later, he received an assistant editor position working with Oliver Stone. However, it was not easy to get the job. Scalia admired Oliver Stone's work, especially Salvador, so he decided he wanted to work with that director. He got a contact through the sister of one of the assistant editors. Scalia worked on such films as Wall Street (1987) and Talk Radio (1988). He later continued as an associate editor on Born on the Fourth of July and as an additional editor on The Doors.

After five years of working with Oliver Stone, Scalia was finally asked to fully edit a film. It was JFK, for which Scalia and his co-editor, Joe Hutshing, were honored with an Academy Award for Film Editing. Craig McKay was nominated the same year for editing The Silence of the Lambs. Scalia edited a sequel to the movie, Hannibal ten years later. He also received a BAFTA Award and A.C.E. Award for his work.

Pietro Scalia worked with Bernardo Bertolucci on Little Buddha (1993) and Stealing Beauty (1996), as well as with Sam Raimi on The Quick and the Dead (1995). He earned two more Academy Award nominations: first in 1997 for Good Will Hunting and second in 2000 for Gladiator, and a second Academy Award for director Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down. He also edited G.I. Jane and a pilot episode of a TV series American Gothic in late 1990s.

In the recent years, Scalia edited such movies as Levity (2003) directed by Ed Solomon, a documentary entitled Ashes and Snow, The Great Raid directed by John Dahl, and Memoirs of a Geisha, one of the most publicized movies of 2005, directed by Rob Marshall. Scalia also worked on Hannibal Rising, a movie that tells a story of a teenaged Hannibal and his young sister Mischa Lecter after their parents are killed in World War II. It was directed by Peter Webber and released in 2007. He has a long lasting relationship with Ridley Scott working on movies such as American Gangster in 2007, Body of Lies in 2008 and Robin Hood in 2010. Most recently he worked with director Ridley Scott on The Martian, released in October 2015. In May 2017, Scalia replaced editor Chris Dickens on the film Solo: A Star Wars Story, which was released in May 2018.

Personal life

He lives in Los Angeles with his wife Teresa Sparks and two children, Julian and Maia Scalia.

Filmography

Editor

Year	Film	Director	Notes
1990	Megaville	Peter Lehner
1991	JFK	Oliver Stone	Fifth collaboration with Oliver Stone
1992	Jackpot	Mario Orfini
1993	Little Buddha	Bernardo Bertolucci	First collaboration with Bernardo Bertolucci
1995	The Quick and the Dead	Sam Raimi
1996	Stealing Beauty	Bernardo Bertolucci	Second collaboration with Bernardo Bertolucci
1997	G.I. Jane	Ridley Scott	First collaboration with Ridley Scott
	Good Will Hunting	Gus Van Sant	First collaboration with Gus Van Sant
1998	The Big Hit	Che-Kirk Wong
	Playing by Heart	Willard Carroll
2000	Gladiator	Ridley Scott	Second collaboration with Ridley Scott
2001	Hannibal		Third collaboration with Ridley Scott
	Black Hawk Down		Fourth collaboration with Ridley Scott
2003	Levity	Ed Solomon
	Masked and Anonymous	Larry Charles
2005	The Great Raid	John Dahl
	Memoirs of a Geisha	Rob Marshall
2007	Hannibal Rising	Peter Webber
	American Gangster	Ridley Scott	Fifth collaboration with Ridley Scott
2008	Body of Lies		Sixth collaboration with Ridley Scott
2010	Kick-Ass	Matthew Vaughn
	Robin Hood	Ridley Scott	Seventh collaboration with Ridley Scott
2012	Prometheus		Eighth collaboration with Ridley Scott
	The Amazing Spider-Man	Marc Webb	First collaboration with Marc Webb
2013	The Counselor	Ridley Scott	Ninth collaboration with Ridley Scott
2014	The Amazing Spider-Man 2	Marc Webb	Second collaboration with Marc Webb
2015	Child 44	Daniel Espinosa	First collaboration with Daniel Espinosa
	The Sea of Trees	Gus Van Sant	Third collaboration with Gus Van Sant
	The Martian	Ridley Scott	Tenth collaboration with Ridley Scott
2016	13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi	Michael Bay	First collaboration with Michael Bay
2017	Alien: Covenant	Ridley Scott	Eleventh collaboration with Ridley Scott
2018	Solo: A Star Wars Story	Ron Howard
2022	Ambulance	Michael Bay	Second collaboration with Michael Bay
	Morbius	Daniel Espinosa	Second collaboration with Daniel Espinosa
	The Gray Man	Russo brothers
2023	Ferrari	Michael Mann

Editorial department

Year	Film	Director	Role	Notes
1987	Shy People	Andrei Konchalovsky	First assistant editor
	Wall Street	Oliver Stone	Assistant editor	First collaboration with Oliver Stone
1988	Cameron's Closet	Armand Mastroianni
	Haunted Summer	Ivan Passer
	Talk Radio	Oliver Stone		Second collaboration with Oliver Stone
1989	Born on the Fourth of July		Associate editor	Third collaboration with Oliver Stone
1991	The Doors		Additional editor	Fourth collaboration with Oliver Stone
1995	White Man's Burden	Desmond Nakano	Consulting editor

Actor

Year	Film	Director	Role
2004	Incident at Loch Ness	Zak Penn	Party Guest

Camera and electrical department

Year	Film	Director	Role
1985	Over the Summer	Teresa Sparks	Assistant cameraman

Music department

Year	Film	Director	Role	Notes
2001	Hannibal	Ridley Scott	Music producer	Uncredited
2013	The Counselor		Music supervisor

Producer

Year	Film	Director	Credit
2003	Masked and Anonymous	Larry Charles	Executive producer
2015	The Sea of Trees	Gus Van Sant	Co-producer
2022	Morbius	Daniel Espinosa	Associate producer

Sound department

Year	Film	Director	Role
1985	Over the Summer	Teresa Sparks	Sound editor

Thanks

Year	Film	Director	Role	Notes
2005	The Matador	Richard Shepard	The producers would like to thank
2007	Battle in Seattle	Stuart Townsend
2008	The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor	Rob Cohen	Special thanks
2010	Repo Men	Miguel Sapochnik		First collaboration with Miguel Sapochnik
2011	The Adjustment Bureau	George Nolfi	Thanks
2012	Quartet	Dustin Hoffman	With thanks to
	Promised Land	Gus Van Sant	Special thanks	Second collaboration with Gus Van Sant
2013	Elysium	Neill Blomkamp	Thanks
2016	Grimsby	Louis Leterrier	Special thanks
	Gold	Stephen Gaghan
2021	Firebird	Peeter Rebane
	Finch	Miguel Sapochnik	The filmmakers gratefully thank	Second collaboration with Miguel Sapochnik

Documentaries

Editor

Year	Film	Director
2005	Ashes and Snow	Gregory Colbert
2007	The 11th Hour	Leila Conners Nadia Conners
2009	40 Years of Silence: An Indonesian Tragedy	Robert Lemelson

Editorial department

Year	Film	Role
2007	Breaking the Ice	Supervising editor

Thanks

Year	Film	Director	Role
2010	Stairway from Hell	Christian Bunz	Special thanks

Shorts

Editor

Year	Film	Director
2012	Ghost Recon: Alpha	François Alaux Hervé de Crécy

Thanks

Year	Film	Director	Role
2006	The Showdown	Antony Sestito Fulvio Sestito	Special thanks
2012	Broken	Alessandra Pasquino	Thanks

TV series

Editor

Year	Title	Notes
1995	American Gothic	1 episode

Thanks

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2002	AFP: American Fighter Pilot	Special thanks	2 episodes

Awards and accolades

Oscars and Oscar nominations

• 1992 – JFK (won w/ co-editor, Joe Hutshing)
• 1998 – Good Will Hunting (nominated)
• 2001 – Gladiator (nominated)
• 2002 – Black Hawk Down (won)

Other

• 2023 — Vision Award, Locarno Film Festival.
• 2001 — Best Editing (Gladiator), BAFTA.
• 1993 — Best Editing, BAFTA.

External links

• Pietro Scalia at IMDb
• Filmed BAFTA event with Pietro Scala, July 2009