Ivan De Battista

Ivan De Battista (born 13 September 1977) is a Maltese film and theatre actor and director, author, and poet. He has been involved in the theatre and musical scene since he was six years old. His early theatre performances were held at the De Porres Theatre, situated in Sliema with the Young Deporrians.

Background

Born in Gżira, Malta to Martin and Irene De Battista, he is the oldest of three brothers. He married Simone De Battista in 2000 and they have two sons. His studies in acting include, ATCL Performing – Trinity College, London, Performer's Certificate in Acting – Trinity College London, Pinnacle Film Acting Course, Curtain Raiser Theatre Group and Bronk Productions Acting Course. He has a Diploma in Management from the University of Leicester. He is a UK Equity Member.

Writings

• Irwiefen (Hurricanes) – a book of poetry published in 1999
• Il-Fanal tas-Sinjur (The Master's Lighthouse) – adventure/mystery book published in 2007 and nominated for Best Book for Youngsters
• Id-Dar ta' Sqaq ix-Xaqq (The House in the Gallows' Alley) – adventure/mystery sequel book published in 2009 and won second prize in the Malta Book Awards for Best Prose for Children.
• Id tad-Deheb (Golden Hand) – nominated for Best Book for Teens.
• Battuti għal Inżul ix-Xemx (Lyrical Beats for Sunset) – an anthology poetry book published in 2010
• Il-Qabar tal-Kavallier (The Knight's Tomb) – adventure/mystery book published in 2011.
• Il-Milied tal-Anġli (Christmas of Angels) – adventure book published in 2011 and won second prize in the Malta Book Awards for Best Prose for Children.
• L-Aħħar Tlettax (The Last Thirteen) – novel published in 2013.

Performances

Ivan De Battista performing in Arthur Miller's drama All My Sons

Some of his acting performances include Wiċċ imb Wiċċ (Face to Face; 2002), Divorzju bi Prova (Divorce by Trial; 2003), Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap (2004), King Lear (2005), All My Sons (2006), etc. Some of his Theatre directions are L-Aħħar Ċena (The Last Supper) for the Gzira Pageant Group (2003), Ix-Xewwiex minn Nazaret (The Nazareth Conspirator; 2004), Il-Ħadd fuq il-Bejt (Sunday on the Roof; 2005), Mal-Aħħar Tokki… (The Last Knell; 2005), Min Qatel lil Ġanni? (Who Killed John?; 2006), Meta Jintefa d-Dawl (When the lights go off!; 2007) and Avukati 247 (247 Advocates; 2007).

Ivan and Simone De Battista were selected, in June 2012, with nine other teams from Europe, to represent Malta at a the Tourcoing, France-based 2012 Eurotopiques festival, La Virgule, in a production called 'Mentior Cum Amori. ^{[citation needed]}

Television

He acted on local television in Simpatici (2001), Il-Madonna taċ-Ċoqqa (2002), Mad-daqqa Niżfnu (2004), Id-Driegħ t 'Alla (2005), Santa Monika (2006), Pupi (2007), and Il-Kristu tal-Kerrejja (2008). He also worked in Carabinieri 1 which was televised on Mediaset Italy. After performing the title role in Il-Kristu tal-Kerrejja, he directed the cliff-hanging whodunit drama on NET Television (Malta) Is-Siġill tal-Qrar. He partially edited this teleseries and wrote the lyrics for the ending credits. He edited several television documentaries including Katakombi. ^{[citation needed]}

He appeared in the four seasons of the popular teleserial F'Salib it-Toroq. He is the director and co-founder of ImaginArts Entertainment Productions. He directed four short movies which are, L-Ittra (The Letter) (2002) – for which he wrote the original theme score as well, Dilemma (2003) which won Certificate of Merit – MACC 2003 & 2004, Is-Siġġu ta-Roti (The Wheelchair) (2004) and Self Flattery (2005), which both won 3rd Place in Best Production at the National MACC Awards Film Festival.

He is currently the Director of the popular tele-series It-Tfal. Recently, he directed the popular whodunit thriller tele-series, Prima Facie, both for 26th Frame Productions. ^{[citation needed]}

Songs

De Battista has written music and lyrics for songs competing in the Song for Europe – Eurovision and has competed in local song festivals. He took part in the Malta Independence Song Festival 2008, singing "Tond jibqa' Tond", and placed third in the same Festival 2090 as both a composer and lyricist of a song sung by newcoming Twins – Lara and Marie-Elena – "Tar iz-Zmien". He took part in a trio group in IndiFest (2012) with the song "Mhux l-ewwel darba". ^{[citation needed]}

Drama Group

Ivan co-founded with his wife Simone, imagin-Arts Drama Group. It started off on 1 August 2010, in which it held its first courses from the following October with more than twenty students. Today, almost 3 years and a half after, the Drama group tripled in its students, which makes it a successful drama group. The drama group prepared students to analyse, build and delve into different characters, with the culmination of many end-of-term performances.

Awards

He was nominated as "Best Actor in Drama" for his outstanding performance in Pupi, organised by the GO Television Awards 2007. He also was nominated for Best Original Soundtrack (Lyrics) for Is-Sigill tal-Qrar, which he directed, organised by the 2010 Vodafone Television Awards.

He won second prize in the Malta Literary Awards for Best Prose for Children for the books Id-Dar ta' Sqaq il-Forka and Il-Milied tal-Angli

References