Greta Bellamacina
Greta Rosanna Bellamacina is a British actress, poet, filmmaker and model.
Early life
Bellamacina was born in London, England, and raised in Camden. She discovered an interest in performing at an early age. She attended Royal Academy of Dramatic Art to study acting before attending King's College London where she graduated with a BA in English.She said:
Acting
Bellamacina made her acting debut at thirteen playing a Slytherin schoolgirl in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.She said:
She grew up attending at The Hampstead Youth Theatre, where she spend the summers writing and performing plays.
In 2017 she performed in an experimental short film about the Romanov sisters titled The Last Birthday, alongside actress Anna Popplewell, which has won a number of awards including the European Independent Film Award.
In 2018 Bellamacina played the lead in the feature film Hurt By Paradise, performing alongside Camilla Rutherford and Jaime Winstone. She described her reference points as Withnail & I and London Kills Me in an interview with CelebMix. The film premiered at Edinburgh International Film Festival, 2019. It was nominated for The Michael Powell Award for Best British Feature Film and Best Performance in a British Feature film.
she played the character Jane as a lead supporting role in the film Indigo Valley which was shot in Los Angeles in 2018.
In 2019 Bellamacina performed in a one-night-only reading of The Pussy Grabber Plays at The Playground Theatre, London. She played Miss Texas in the segment "Five Beauty Queens Walk Into A Bar" by Julia Brownell, alongside British actresses Lily Newmark and Tamsin Egerton.
Andy Warhol's Interview magazine says Bellamacina, "is garnering critical acclaim for her way with words and her ability to translate the classic poetic form into the contemporary creative landscape." Greta is represented by Tavistock Wood for acting
In 2020 Bellamacina played the lead character Sally in Jamie Adam's "Venice At Dawn", a modern day Bonnie and Clyde love story alongside Fabien Frankel. She also starred in "The Long Game", by American Psycho producer Lauren McLaughlin, both set for release in 2021.
Poetry
Bellamacina was shortlisted as Young Poet Laureate of London in 2014 for her debut collection Kaleidoscope. In 2015 she edited On Love, a survey of contemporary British love poetry from Ted Hughes to the present.In 2016 Bellamacina and future husband Robert Montgomery co-founded New River Press. It was described by Another Magazine as "a publishing house fuelled by restlessness and a frustration with the state of contemporary poetry in Britain. Bringing together young, emerging poets with older and more established figures who may currently lack a platform for their work..."
In 2016 she published Perishing Tame, a collection of poems on motherhood, female identity and love. She also published a collection of collaborative poetry with Montgomery entitled Points for Time in the Sky, a psychogeographical journey through modern Britain, and a rare example of collaborative poetry in British literature. The same year she edited Smear, an anthology of contemporary feminist poetry. Dazed & Confused Magazine said the collection "unapologetically confronts self-image, body autonomy and our relationships with each other, celebrating the imperfect, frank woman".
In 2018 she was commissioned by the National Poetry Library to write a group of poems for their Odyssey series, modern mediations on Homer's Odyssey. In the same year she published her Selected Poems 2015–2017.
In 2019 the collection was republished into Spanish, with translations by poet Juan José Vélez, published with Valparaíso Ediciones.
Pierpaolo Piccioli commissioned Bellamacina to write ten love poems, published to coincide with his FW19 collection for Valentino fashion house. The poems were featured on the clothes as well as printed into a book which was placed on each seat before the show in Paris.
In 2020 Greta's poetry collection 'Tomorrow's Woman' was published internationally with US publisher Andrews McMeel Publishing, she attended the Winter Institute in Baltimore, Maryland where she launched the book to independent booksellers across America. The collection also had a London launch at the London Review of Books in Bloomsbury where she read a number of her poems. The Financial Times described the collection as "beguiling, urgent, beautiful, lamenting, tender and powerful ode to the complexities of contemporary womanhood" and describing Greta as a "cultural Trojan horse"
Film
As a library activist Bellamacina wrote and directed a documentary, about the rise and the decline of the British public library. The Safe House: A Decline of Ideas, was released in 2016 at The Gate Cinema, in Notting Hill. The documentary was inspired by her upbringing, where the library was a crucial space for her, introducing her to the works of Anne Sexton and Elizabeth Smart. The documentary explores the heritage and significance of the British Public Library, also questioning why such a historically important British institution is in dramatic decline in today's contemporary society. The film features intimate and personal stories from British literary and film figures, including Stephen Fry, Irvine Welsh, Bonnie Wright and John Cooper Clarke.Bellamacina wrote and directed a short film featuring Ezra Pound's 90-year-old daughter Mary de Rachewiltz entitled 'Ezra Pound: The Last Cantos’, which aired on National Poetry at the Soho Revue Gallery in London. Bellamacina named the opening night "National Poetry Day Who Gives a Fuck? " celebrating the importance of National Poetry Day with a series of live poetry performances.
In 2019 Bellamacina's fiction debut 'Hurt By Paradise' was nominated for ″Best UK Feature″ at both Raindance Film Festival and Edinburgh International Film Festival 73rd edition and was widely acclaimed. Filmotomy said “Bellamacina has it in her to become one of the great contemporary female voices in British cinema.”.
In 2020 Bellamacina played the lead character Sally in Jamie Adam's "Venice At Dawn", a modern day Bonnie and Clyde love story alongside Fabien Frankel.
Modelling
Bellamacina began her modelling career after being discovered on a bus in Camden when she was 14. Bellamacina has appeared in fashion campaigns for Shrimps, Mulberry and Stella McCartney, and posed for Vogue Magazine, Dazed, I-D Magazine and Porter. She has walked in catwalk shows for Dolce & Gabbana.In 2018 Bellamacina appeared on the cover of independent fashion magazines Unpolished Magazine, British Girls and Hello Fashion Monthly celebrating her work as an actress and poet.
In 2019 Bellamacina starred on the cover of Harper's Bazaar photographed by Tom Craig on the Orient Express. The issue featured four of Greta's poems alongside the pictures of her on the train and in Venice.
She also featured in The Vampire's Wife fashion campaign alongside Kate Moss, Susie and Nick Cave and Keira Knightley with her son Lucian-Valentine.