ABOUT

Richard Corso, born December 2nd, 1994, is an American film director, producer, and writer. Contributor to the Denver Film Society and the Colorado Film and Video Association, helping the industry in Colorado build its local indie film scene. Known for his often dark and humorous, genre-bending stories, Corso regularly explores themes such as pointless and sadistic chaos, with characters filling out simple archetypes who often find very little in their pursuit of destiny and/or purpose.

At the age of 18, Corso’s first short film, Rabbit Bones (2013), won both the Best Director and Best Film at The Denver Film Festival. Rabbit Bones was followed up that same year by both The Grey Gentlemen (2013) and Who’s Bruce Flynn? (2013).

Corso’s second award-winning short film, Monkey (2014), was awarded Best Short Film, Best Up-and-Coming Director, and Best Sound Editing at the Seattle International Film Festival. 

In 2016, in collaboration with Director of Photography, Nick Bruso, Corso wrote and directed the Neo-Noir crime film Fish (2017), which won a Best Cinematography and Best Film award at the Frostbite International Indie Fest while also gathering nominations for Best Directing and Best Actor. 

Corso has established a long filmography involving repeat collaborations with actors and film technicians, including seven films made with actor Cody Dermon and four films made with Cinematographer Brekon Baxter. Both of whom would return to work with Corso on the award-winning The Salesman (2018). The dark comedy about a traveling salesman (played by Brent Podosek), where both Podosek and Dermon were nominated for their performances. The film was also awarded Best Film in the New York Film Awards, as well as a Best Film nomination in the Colorado Film Awards. Think Shorts gave The Salesman 5/5 stars.

“You can see a lot of talent and tender loving care has gone in to making [The Salesman], and that’s reflected heavily in the finished cut. Richard Corso has delivered a charming short that will certainly make you laugh…Highly recommended.” ~ Think Shorts

In 2019, Corso was approached to direct The New World Order (2019) an adaptation of Harold Pinter’s play of the same name. The film stars Haydn Winston and Dermon as a pair of bumbling, violent British gangsters, arguing the semantics of insults while interrogating a blindfolded man in a chair. (An interview about the making of this film can be seen here)  

“Director Richard Corso delivers an up-standing adaption that is subtly chilling and sinister…To adapt a stage-play into an 8-minute short is a brave step to walk, but Corso has created an engaging short that is thrilling to watch.” ~ Think Shorts

Around this time, fellow Denver filmmaker Kareem Kamahl Taylor and Corso embarked on a long and grueling production titled Cassidy Blues (2020), a nod to the French New Wave films of the 60s and the high octane cop dramas of the 70s. The story of two detectives chasing a Bonnie and Clyde pair with their only lead being a pack of cigarettes called Cassidy Blues. Starring singer/songwriter Mandy Groves and another Corso alumni, Gabe Combs, Cassidy Blues was proven to be a high-risk-high-reward project for both Taylor and Corso, gathering half a dozen awards including Best Film and Best Actress at the MCA Awards, and Best Original Score at the Beyond the Curve Film Festival in Paris.

“A time machine to a cops and robbers story […] a love letter to a bygone era”. ~ UK Film Review

Corso would spend the better part of 2019 engaged in various projects with writer, and former classmate, Gregory Ferbrache to develop the Pulp Adventure story, Three, to Cairo (TBD) and the dark Neo-Western A Yeti Met a Mammoth (TBD). While both films would prove to be too expensive to produce at the present time, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Corso pursued two script adaptations of Ferbrache’s work: the medieval satirical piece, Picnic Under a Gibbet (2021) and a one-location mystery thriller, The Switcheroo Room (2022). Both UK Film Review and Indie Shorts Mag gave Picnic Under a Gibbet 5/5 Stars:

"A feat of quality production, [Picnic] is dark, morbid, funny, and cutting; Nothing feels out of place...Come for the debate on semantics, stay for the unholy reminder of our own dark times." ~ Indie Shorts Mag

The Switcheroo Room (2022), based on the short story, “You Little Etcetera, You” by Ferbrache, is now in post-production, with a release attached to February 2022. The film stars DeEtta Jain, Ryan Lee, Haleigh Burckley, Emma Moody and Aletheia Matthews as the film’s leads. A teaser can be scene here.

As of 2021, now splitting time between Denver, Colorado and Atlanta, Georgia, Corso is embarking on a new step in his career with his feature film debut: Funeral Singers. Co-written by Ferbrache, the film is a dark road trip comedy centered around brothers Prince and Hank Gravely en-route through an Americana wasteland with their deceased father and a pet goldfish in their 1950’s Cadillac hearse. Drawing influence from the Coen Brothers, Wim Wenders, and pictures such as the Blues Brothers and Easy Rider, the project is being produced by Thomas Wingerd, Adam S. Ford, Sterling J. Cook, and Sterling Miller and is currently seeking financial backing.