Alessandro Avataneo (1977) is an Italian author, filmmaker, and cultural strategist.

He is the creator, founder, and CEO of Hypercritic.
Working in many countries between Europe, North America, and Asia, Alessandro’s center of gravity is Turin.

It was there that he attended the Scuola Holden, the international school of storytelling named after the eponymous protagonist of J.D Salinger’s novel, Catcher in the Rye. Alessandro took the Masters in Storytelling and Performing Arts. Some of his professors included the legendary American literary critic Harold Bloom, the Italian writers and lecturers Alessandro Baricco, Daniele Del Giudice and Stefano Benni. Since 2012 Alessandro has also been a professor at the school, teaching such things as Cinema, Performing Arts, Storytelling, and Worldbuilding.

In 2020 Hypercritic was brought to life, thanks to Alessandro, some students from the Scuola Holden, and his sister Giulia, who’s the Hypercritic Editor-in-Chief, as well as being an international journalist. The project took ten years to come to fruition.

Behind the camera and with pen in hand

Alessandro’s artistic and creative incarnations include filmmaker, author, teacher, and food and wine writer.

He has produced and directed four feature films and documentaries, including Poema Circular, a short film about tango set in a magical Turin, the opera-movie Leghorn with Lindsay Kemp, and Il Grande Oz. The latter is an eight-year documentary project set in and around FondazioneOz, a groundbreaking home for disabled children outside Turin. The film premiered to critical acclaim at the 2017 Torino Film Festival.

Alessandro is also the author of such books as A Tale of the Hills, a novel about the beautiful rural Langhe area of north-western Italy, as well as a book about the world of wine, from which he made a documentary of the same name, The Great Atlas of Italian Wine, done in collaboration with the noted wine critic Vittorio Manganelli. Kitchen Run is a collection of 70 stories in which chefs, pizza makers, bakers, and pastry chefs from around the world share their lives, their ideas, and their creative processes. A book where the kitchen reveals itself as an endless source of inspiration.

Author of Art of Telling Stories (Cesati, 2024), the result of 25 years of research, he applies narrative design and worldbuilding to cultural diplomacy and leadership, promoting shared imaginaries, human rights, and democratic regeneration.

Cultural Strategy and Global Impact

Author, filmmaker, and cultural strategist, Alessandro Avataneo combines a background in International Relations and Diplomacy with cinema and the performing arts, bridging policy design, technology, and social impact with the humanities and futures studies.

A strategic advisor to UNESCO, European Capitals of Culture, and public institutions in over 30 countries, he is a member of the selection committee of Biennale College Cinema and mentors new generations of filmmakers at TorinoFilmLab, Scuola Holden, University of Gastronomic Sciences, the European Association of Creative Writing Programmes, and the Red Sea Lodge (Saudi Arabia), where he supports the development of creative talents from the MENA and ASEAN regions.

Since 2025, he’s Chief Creative Officer of IUSE – University Institute of European Studies.

Do you have any projects that matter and that might be in line with Hypercritic?
Get in touch with Alessandro, write to avataneo@hypercritic.org