Mariano Baino is a filmmaker and multidisciplinary artist, hailed by Montreal's FantAsia Film Festival (where his film “DARK WATERS” received the coveted Prix Du Public) as “one of the great torchbearers for expressionistic genre cinema”. He won the “Vincent Price Award for outstanding contribution to fantastic cinema” and the "Silver Bat Career Achievement Award" at Rome’s FantaFestival. His feature film DARK WATERS, “a veritable object of veneration among horror fans” in the words of Italian newspaper La Repubblica, received prestigious gala screenings at Lincoln Center in New York, the National Cinema Museum in Turin, Italy, the American Cinematheque's Egyptian Theater and the Italian Cinematheque in Rome, and has been released to great acclaim all over the world. DARK WATERS has been named one of the 20 films with The Creepiest Nuns In Movie History by VARIETY and top of the 10 Best Italian Horror Movies on Shudder by SCREENRANT.COM His latest feature film is ASTRID'S SAINTS. Mariano is also a renowned multimedia artist with successful art exhibitions and installations in the USA and Europe, most recently ARS INFECTA at Rome's Museum of Contemporary Art, IMAGO IGNIS and VULTUS VELI at the magnificent Hall of the Leprosarium, in Naples, Italy, LUCTUS IGNIS at the Savoy Multiplex in Rome, the LADY M 5.1 installation at Mana Contemporary, NJ, and CYPHERS AND FLAMES at The SoapBox Gallery in Brooklyn, NY.