Franco Piavoli was born in Pozzolengo in 1933. After graduating in Law from the University of Pavia, he taught law while cultivating his passion for photography and painting. In the 1960s he turned to experimental cinema with a series of short films that won awards at the Montecatini Film Festival (Le stagioni, 1961; Domenica sera, 1962; Emigranti, 1963; Evasi, 1964). In 1982 he made his first feature film, The Blue Planet, presented at the Venice Film Festival, which earned him both the BCV Prize and the UNESCO Award. Between the 1980s and 1990s Piavoli brought his sensibility into the world of opera, directing Puccini’s Suor Angelica at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in 1984, Verdi’s La forza del destino in 1985, and Bellini’s Norma at the Teatro Grande in Brescia in 1990. In 1989 he made Nostos: The Return, his personal reinterpretation of the myth of Ulysses, presented at the Locarno Film Festival. In 1996 Voices Through Time won the FEDIC Award at the Venice Film Festival. In 2002 he directed At the First Breath of Wind, which competed at the Locarno Film Festival and at the Sundance Film Festival. In 2004 he was awarded the Vittorio De Sica Prize at the Quirinale. In 2010 he received the medal of the President of the Italian Republic as part of the Solinas Prize. In 2016 the Cinéma du Réel festival in Paris dedicated a complete retrospective to him at the Centre Pompidou. In 2021 he received the Rosa d’oro, the Milanesiana’s cinema award. In 2025, Cineteca di Milano completed the restoration of The Blue Planet.