Directory Profile

Austin Formato is an award-winning commercial/film director, producer and creative director. He has won such awards as the Cannes Lion, Effie and I.A.A.A. He has been featured in Time Magazine, Creativity, Business Week (World Editions), The Hollywood Reporter and Variety.

Formato was voted “The Best Advertising Creative under Thirty in America,” by Advertising Age magazine in 2001. SHOTS magazine, the highest-circulation advertising publication, named him one of the top new commercial directors in the world. His films have been short-listed for the past two years in Cannes for directing awards and have played in 27,000 movie theaters across America.

As a writer/director, he has won numerous awards including the Motion Picture Association of America award for excellence in filmmaking (two years consecutively) and the Samuel Goldwyn Award in feature film screenwriting.

Formato has dual M.F.A.'s from the UCLA School of Film & Television in both screenwriting and directing. While receiving his M.F.A. in directing from UCLA School of Film & Television, he was voted the “Top Film School Director” in the United States at the Limelight Director Showcase by some of the movie industry’s most accomplished talent and executives.

Austin Formato has been teaching at the University of Southern California, School of Cinematic Arts since 2002.