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After academic studies in foreign languages at the University of Pisa, he attended the Experimental Centre of Cinematography and became friends with Nestor Almendros, future cinematographer for Francois Truffaut, Terence Malick, with whom he would win an Academy Award for “Days of Heaven” (1978), and with Manuel Puig, who would later surprise the world with the novel “Kiss of the Spider Woman”. Two years later, Vittorio Storaro and Gabriel Garcia Marquez also entered the same school.
In the 70s and the 80s, Tovoli was one of the protagonists of the renewal of the lighting vision of Italian cinema. Introducing in his films a taste for the authenticity of reportage photography, he was among the first in Italy to embody a “cultured” model for the director of photography. His debut was as co- cinematographer with director Vittorio De Seta in “Banditi ad Orgosolo” (1960), and he continued with “Come l’amore” (1968) by Enzo Muzii after having dedicated himself for a long time to documentaries.
Over his career, he received two “Nastri d’Argento” awards in 1976 for Michelangelo Antonioni’s “Professione: Reporter” (1975) and in 1989 for Ettore Scola’s “Splendor” (1989), as well as a “David di Donatello” award for Scola’s “Il Viaggio di Capitan Fracassa” (1990).
From 2010 to 2016, Tovoli worked with four filmmakers (Ettore Scola, Barbet Schroeder, Jacob Berger and Luc Bondy) on four films that are very different but are connected through his own definition of “Quartetto”.