/Lucia Mauro
Before telling stories through the medium of film, writer-director Lucia Mauro of Chicago was a longtime theater/dance critic & arts/culture writer (Chicago Tribune, Chicago Magazine, Chicago Public Radio, In Theatre Magazine), with close ties to artists in all aspects of the live performing arts and film. In My Brother's Shoes marks her directorial debut. Her second film, the feature One Year Later, centers on a cancer survivor who takes a life-affirming trip to the Italian Alps where she learns to reassert her independence and move on. It was shot in Milan and Aosta, Italy and premiered in Fall 2016. One Year Later screened at Montreal's 2016 Visions of the World Film & Music Festival, where it was nominated for Best Original Score. It is also shown throughout the medical community for cancer support groups. Lucia's third film, the poetic documentary, Frances Xavier Cabrini: The People's Saint, premiered in 2017 in Montreal, QC, Canada at Santa Cabrini Hospital in honor of the dedication of the Chapel to Mother Cabrini by the Archbishop of Montreal. It chronicles the great humanitarian work of the Patron Saint of Immigrants and Hospital Administrators during Mother Cabrini's Centenary year. All of Lucia's films explore the idea of healing, resilience and human connection. She is also the writer-host of an Italian TV pilot, The Cooking American. She is a bilingual (English and Italian) Italy cultural historian and has written extensively on the country’s 20 multilayered regions and published two books of photography, Frieze Frame I: Textures & Colors of Italy and Frieze Frame II: Textures & Colors of Italy. She was voted one of 100 Women Making a Difference by Today’s Chicago Woman magazine and awarded the Impresa Award by the Women’s Division of the Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans and the Leonardo da Vinci Award of Excellence by the Order Sons of Italy in America. Her father was a U.S. Navy veteran of WWII, and her brother served in the U.S. Marine Corps.