Born in Toronto in 1943, David Cronenberg is an undisputed master of contemporary cinema. During the 1970s, his fascination with transferring philosophical, scientific and technological themes to his films earned him a reputation as one of the masters of horror films thanks to movies like The Brood (1979) and Scanners (1981). His films, from Videodrome (1982) to Dead Ringers (1988), explore man’s terror of the genetic mutation of bodies, of the psychological and physical infection of the flesh and the destructive impulses of the mind. More recently, after the success of his film Crash at the 1996 Festival of Cannes, and Spider (2002), he tried his hand at big budget productions with the Majors and directed A History of Violence (2005) and Eastern Promises (2007). At the same time, he developed a series of projects outside the realm of cinema, like the opera The Fly (based on the homonymous film he directed in 1986), which was performed in Paris and Los Angeles in 2008. He has paid “official” visits to Italy three times: to Turin in 2003 to meet with students of the University, to Venice in 2005 to present Red Cars and to Rome in 2008 to inaugurate the exhibition Chromosomes.