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Film & TV

Vincenzo Natali

born 1969 · film director, screenwriter

Detroit-born Canadian-American director of the cult science-fiction thriller Cube and the horror film Splice.

Portrait of Vincenzo Natali
Photo: BrokenSphere · CC BY-SA 3.0
Born

Detroit, Michigan
age 57
Detroit years
1969
Field
Film & TV

01 / The Detroit story

The Detroit story

Vincenzo Natali was born in Detroit on January 6, 1969, to a mother who was a nursery school teacher and painter and a father who was a photographer. He grew up across the river in Canada, in Toronto, where he trained in film and worked as a storyboard artist, so his Detroit link is his birthplace. His first feature, Cube (1997), about strangers trapped in a deadly maze of identical rooms, was made on a tiny budget and became an international cult hit. He followed it with the thrillers Cypher and Nothing, and the genetic-engineering horror film Splice (2009), and later adapted Stephen King and Joe Hill's novella In the Tall Grass for Netflix. He has also directed episodes of prestige television such as Hannibal, Westworld and Lovecraft Country.

Highlights

  1. Cube (1997), an international cult science-fiction hit
  2. Splice (2009), starring Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley
  3. In the Tall Grass (2019) for Netflix
  4. Directed episodes of Hannibal and Westworld