Vincenzo Mistretta is an artist and filmmaker from Bagheria (PA), Sicily.  As a graduate from Pratt Institute in NYC, he gained a BFA in painting in 1989.  At Pratt he studied Fine Arts (Painting) and made his first film on Super-8 and his first video on VHS.  He continued working in both painting and film and received an MA in 1998 and an MFA in 2006 in Media Study from SUNY Buffalo.  In his films Mistretta works in experimental, narrative, and documentary, often utilizing a hybrid of all three. He identifies himself as a structural filmmaker. In 2006, he was awarded a Fulbright fellowship to continue his research on and documentation of the Women in Black anti-war movement in Rome, Italy.  He has continued his interest in activist video with his documentary work on environmental issues in Buffalo, NY and LGBTQ+ rights in Mississippi.

He has screened and exhibited his films/paintings internationally at galleries and festivals including Open Video Projects and the Arcipelago Film Festival in Rome, Italy; the O’Curt Film Festival in Naples, Italy; Netwerk /Center for Contemporary Art, Brussels; the Madrid International Film Festival; the International Independent Film Festival in New York City; Kristen Lorello Art Gallery in New York City; the St. Tropez International Film Festival in France; the Jaipur International Film Festival in India; the XXIV Fano International Film Festival in Italy; Atelier Piero Montana in Bagheria Sicily; the Independent Film Quarterly Film Festival in California; The National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.; The Palermo Film Festival; and The Ostia international Film Festival, among others.

Mistretta began teaching filmmaking in 1998 at the University at Buffalo and then at SUNY Fredonia.  He has worked extensively as a freelance cinematographer and editor in the US, Canada, and Europe.  Today Mistretta is a filmmaker, a painter, and an associate professor of film production in the film program at the University of Southern Mississippi on the Gulf Coast.