Enrico Cocozza

Born

1921-11-06

Died

1997-12-27

Birthplace

Wishaw, North Lanarkshire, Scotland, UK

Biography

Enrico Cocozza was a Scottish-Italian filmmaker whose imaginative and often surreal films earned considerable recognition on the amateur film circuit during the 1940s and 1950s. Working mainly in and around Wishaw, where his family owned the popular Belhaven Café, he produced films including Chick’s Day (1950), a prize-winner at the 1951 Scottish Amateur Film Festival, The Living Ghost (1957) and Glasgow’s Docklands (1959). A combination of personal and health difficulties eventually drew Cocozza away from filmmaking. These included an eye injury, the onset of diabetes, his mother’s declining health and death, and the sale of the family café. He later spent much of his working life teaching at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, but was forced to retire when complications from diabetes caused his eyesight to deteriorate. Despite his earlier success, his films gradually fell into obscurity.