He moved from Bergamo to Milan when he was still very young to enrol in the Academy of Dramatic Arts. He worked at Edison Volta where he organised the cinematographic department, and from 1953 to 1961 he directed over thirty documentaries. His debut on the big screen was in Time Has Come to a Standstill (1959). He won over the critics with Il Posto (1961), and he then stared in her masterpiece The Tree of the Wooden Clogs which won a Golden Palm Award at the Cannes Festival. In 1982 he returned to the big screen in Walking, Walking and in the same year he founded the Hypothesis Cinema school in Bassano del Grappa. He then returned to full length films in Long Live to the Lady! (1987). In 1998 he returned to win a Golden Lion award with The Legend of the Holy Drinker. In the mid nineties he directed the Genesis episode of the Italian state television broadcasting company project The Story of the Bible. In 2007 he was involved in Cento-chiodi and in 2008 he won a Golden Lion Award at the Venice Cinema Festival for his career.

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