Melampo Cinematografica and Cecchi Gori Group

There are horror stories in the filmmaking industry: bleak tales of men in suits sent from depths of the studio. Wielding focus group feedback and current trends like machetes, they hack into the scripts and creative choices of their filmmakers. If the director struggles, she'll find no recourse except to quit in protest. This is the curse of studio interference, and it hath befallen many a film.

Lucky for Roberto Benigni, Life Is Beautiful avoided this terrible fate. The film was produced by Gianluigi Braschi and Elda Ferri under the helm of production companies Melampo Cinematografica and Cecchi Gori Group.

The former, btw, is Benigni's very own production company, established in 1994 with his wife, Nicoletta Braschi. Yeah, it's easy to tell the suits to take a leap when they're your minions.

As Benigni's production company, Melampo Cinematografica exclusively produces his creative works. Its first film, The Monster, was written and directed by Benigni, and its second film was the Academy Award-winning Life Is Beautiful, also written and directed by Benigni.

Its other Benigni projects include Pinocchio, The Tiger and the Snow, and several of the actor's life stage performances. To boil this all down: Benigni writes the scripts, Benigni directs the films, Benigni owns the production company, Benigni does what he wants.

You got a problem with that? Take it up with Benigni.

Cecchi Gori Group, on the other hand, is a little more difficult to pin down. Between 1987 and 2003, it produced more than one hundred films with a focus on producing and promoting Italian films by Italian filmmakers. Among those is Il Postino, a gem of a film that was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

And since Benigni's an Italian filmmaker, it's a perfect match.

Cecchi Gori Group also handled distribution of Hollywood films in Italy and dabbled in producing in Hollywood, too. It was one of the seven other production companies credited on Freddy vs. Jason, a movie that might have benefitted by the curse of studio interference (or just any curse, really).