Born in 1920 in Santarcangelo di Romagna, author and poet Tonino Guerra made his cinematic debut in 1957 with Uomini e Lupi, directed by Giuseppe De Santis, followed by La strada lunga un anno (1958), and La Garconnière (1960). The trilogy formed by L’Avventura (1959), La Notte (1960) and L’Eclisse (1962), gave way to a long lasting and prosperous partnership with Michelangelo Antonioni, thus providing the director with a profound psychological analysis of the crisis of the individual. With Deserto Rosso (1964), Blow-up (1966) and Zabriskie Point (1970), "Guerra’s contribution to cinema adopts a less traditional form and becomes more stylised and abstract".
In 1968 he scripted Elio Petri’s film Un tranquilllo posto di campagna, followed by three films directed by Francesco Rosi, Uomini Contro (1970), Il caso Mattei (1972) and Cadaveri eccellenti (1975). Guerra is tied to both Petri and Rosi by a common need for a civil and ideological kind of cinema. Over the years Guerra often collaborated with authors/screenwriters of the likes of Elio Bartolini, Raffaele La Capria, Alberto Moravia, Ottiero Ottieri, as well as Ugo Pirro and Ennio Flaiano,
Together with Luigi Malerba he wrote the humorous Franco Indovina film Lo Scatenato (1967), and in 1970 recreated a peculiar medieval setting surrounding the vicissitudes of Carmelo Bene, Franco Parenti and Giancarlo Dettori in Tre nel Mille.
That same year Guerra wrote Un papillon sur l’èpaule (1973) for Jaques Deray, as well as Fellini’s Amarcord, set in a fabulous Romagna. Guerra re-teamed with Antonioni for Il mistero di Oberwald (1980), and Identificazione di una donna (1983). That same year he met Andrej Tarkovskij for whom he wrote Nostalghia. 1983 was the year of E la nave va, again with Fellini, and in 1984 he wrote l’Enrico IV for Bellocchio, and Kaos for the Taviani brothers.