Alberto Grimaldi, a renowned lawyer turned film producer, has had a remarkable career spanning multiple decades. His initial foray into the world of cinema was through a legal lens, but he soon transitioned to production, establishing his company Produzioni Europee Associate (PEA) in the early 1960s. PEA's early success was marked by the distribution of Joaquín Luis Romero Marchant's western, "La venganza del Zorro" (1962),which was shot in Almería, Spain, where Sergio Leone had also filmed his first western, "Per un pugno di dollari".
Grimaldi's relationship with Leone led to his involvement in the production of "Per qualche dollaro in più", and the subsequent success of Leone's films cemented PEA's position as a significant production company. In 1967, Grimaldi's path crossed with Federico Fellini, who was struggling to produce "Il viaggio di G. Mastorna" due to contractual issues with producer Dino de Laurentiis. Grimaldi freed Fellini from the contract and produced the short film "Toby Dammit" for the anthology film "Histoires extraordinaires".
This marked the beginning of a long-term association between Grimaldi and several prominent Italian filmmakers who shared artistic aspirations. He went on to produce films by Gillo Pontecorvo, Elio Petri, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Bernardo Bertolucci, and Francesco Rosi, among others. In the 1970s, however, Grimaldi faced setbacks, including the financial failure of "Il Casanova di Federico Fellini" and the difficulties surrounding the production of "Novecento".
Grimaldi's relationship with Bertolucci ended in court, and he only produced Fellini's "Ginger and Fred" in the 1980s. Sixteen years passed before Grimaldi released a new production, "Gangs of New York", directed by Martin Scorsese, which was plagued by problems, including a lawsuit against Universal, Walt Disney, and other parties. In 2007, Grimaldi was honored with a retrospective of his films at the Valladolid International Film Festival, and the book "The Art of Producing with Success" was launched to celebrate his work.
