Biography
Otello Martelli was an Italian cinematographer. Born in Rome on 19 May 1902, he began working in the film industry as an assistant cameraman during the silent era and later shot newsreels for Istituto Luce, including coverage of the 1928 Nobile polar expedition. His first major feature credit came in 1934 with Alessandro Blasetti’s Vecchia guardia.
Martelli became closely associated with Italian neorealism and the work of Roberto Rossellini and Federico Fellini. He photographed Rossellini’s Paisan (1946) and Stromboli (1950), Giuseppe De Santis’s Bitter Rice (1949) and several Fellini films, among them Variety Lights (1950), I Vitelloni (1953), La Strada (1954), The Swindle (1955) and La Dolce Vita (1960). He also contributed to Boccaccio ’70 (1962).
Martelli died in Rome on 20 February 2000.
