Giancarlo Zagni was an Italian director and screenwriter. Born in Bologna, he attended the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Bologna, then collaborated with L'avvenire d'Italia and other newspapers and magazines. From 1951 to 1954, he was assistant director to Luchino Visconti in several stage works and in the film Senso; on the film set, he met actress Alida Valli, with whom he started a sixteen-year-long relationship. During this period, he left Italy, first moving to New York, where he attended the Actors Studio, and then to Mexico, where he directed some stage plays and became the founder and a professor of the School of Autonomous Cinema National at the University of Mexico. Returning to Italy in 1961, Zagni made his directorial debut with the film La bellezza di Ippolita, an adaptation of the novel of the same name written by Elio Bartolini, with which he represented Italy at the 12th Berlin International Film Festival. In 1966, he entered the Venice Film Festival with the comedy film Blockhead, which won the "Leone di San Marco Plate." With this film, he retired from filmmaking but not from the cinema industry, embarking on a new career as a producer and distributor as a manager of the company Italnoleggio.
