Born in Macerata, Italy. After high school with an artistic emphasis, Ferretti then moved to Rome to attend the Academy of Fine Arts. He became a friend to the great set designer of the 1960's, Luigi Scaccianoce. Ferretti entered Italian film as an assistant production designer in 1964, then made his production designer debut in 1969 with the Pier Paolo Pasolini film, MEDEA, recreating the classical world with flavours of the Orient, where the film was shot. With Pasolini, Ferretti continued to work until the death of the director, collaborating on DECAMERON (1971), set in the sunny, mediterranean Medieval, I RACCONTI DI CANTERBURY (1972), IL FIORE DELLE MILLE E UNA NOTTE (1974), where he once again shot the Orient in a manner outside the known stereotype, on to favouring a more contemporary reality in the scenery for SALÒ O LE 120 GIORNATE DI SODOMA (1975). During the same period, Ferretti began to work with other masters of Italian cinema, from Elio Petri (LA CLASSE OPERAIA VA IN PARADISO, 1971) to Luigi Comencini (IL GATTO, 1978), from Ettore Scola (LA NUIT DE VERENNES -IL MONDO NUOVO, 1982) to Marco Ferreri, for whom he conceived the desolate America of CIAO MASCHIO (1979) and also the self-destructive one of STORIE DI ORDINARIA FOLLIA (1981), moving on to IL FUTURO È DONNA (1984). In 1979, he started to work with Federico Fellini, giving life to the visions of the master from Rimini, and providing a fondamental contribution to the creation of his world. Together they realized some of the best films for each of them, from PROVA D'ORCHESTRA (1979) to LA VOCE DELLA LUNA (1982). Ferretti's grand career in international cinema took off with the Medieval, both realistic and symbolic, in THE NAME OF THE ROSE (Il Nome della rosa, 1982) with Jean-Jacque Annaud. 1989 brought the first of his 8 Oscar® nominations, for the baroque scenery of THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN by Terry Gilliam, and the following year he was again nominated for HAMLET by Franco Zeffirelli. Touching down in Hollywood, he became a master of period reconstruction, but not only that, also for diverse settings, out of the norms and always avoiding the traps of convention and repetition. In 1994, he designed INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE, by Neil Jordan, in lavish detail set between Europe and America of the 1700s. However it was to be with Martin Scorsese that Ferretti would develop his longest and closest collaboration, from the refined suggestions of nobility in THE AGE OF INNOCENCE (1993), to the cruel light of Las Vegas in CASINO (1995), to the bewitching exoticism of KUNDUN (1997), to the bloody counterfeit world of turn of the century New York in GANGS OF NEW YORK (2002), up to the gritty glamour of 1940s Hollywood in THE AVIATOR (2004), for which Ferretti received his first Academy Award®. Some of Ferretti's other notable (non-nominated) credits include MEET JOE BLACK (1998), BRINGING OUT THE DEAD and TITUS (both 1999), and COLD MOUNTAIN (2003). 2005 saw Ferretti tackle Brian De Palma's THE BLACK DAHLIA, adapted from a novel by James Ellroy, set in the 1940s. "I had to reconstruct the Los Angeles of the '40s, and I did it in Bulgaria" - declared Ferretti - "Fortunately Fellini taught me that there are no impossible undertakings". He was also production designer for THE FINE ART OF LOVE: MINE HA-HA (2005), SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET (2007), and RIPLEY'S BELIEVE IT OR NOT (scheduled for 2009). Ferretti is married to Oscar®-winning set decorator Francesca Lo Schiavo.  Nominated for Achievement in Art Direction 1989: THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN - Art Direction  Nominated for Achievement in Art Direction 1990: HAMLET - Art Direction  Nominated for Achievement in Art Direction 1993: THE AGE OF INNOCENCE - Art Direction  Nominated for Achievement in Art Direction 1994: INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE - Art Direction  Nominated for Achievement in Art Direction 1997: KUNDUN - Art Direction  Nominated for Achievement in Costume Design 1997: KUNDUN  Nominated for Achievement in Art Direction 2002: GANGS OF NEW YORK - Art Direction  Best Achievement in Art Direction 2004: THE AVIATOR - Art Direction  Best Achievement in Art Direction 2007: SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET - Art Direction 9 nominations, 2 Awards