Emmy Award–winning filmmaker Lorena Luciano is a fellow of the Sundance Institute, the MacArthur Foundation, and the International Documentary Association (IDA), and an Artist-in-Residence alumna of the Jacob Burns Film Center.
Born and raised in Italy, she studied Law in Milan before moving to New York to pursue filmmaking, a bold leap that set her on a path across continents and human stories. Her legal background informs the ethics of her research, her commitment to accuracy, and her dedication to fair, balanced storytelling.
An indomitable storyteller, Lorena crafts intimate, cinematic investigations into power, justice, and moral reckoning. Her films have resonated with global audiences, winning Best Directing and Best Documentary awards, traveling to major festivals, being translated into over ten languages, and distributed worldwide.
She has earned deep trust and access among diverse communities, from refugee survivors and overlooked coal communities to subversive artists and political activists, portraying their lives through vérité filmmaking, intimate interviews, and rich archival material.
In 1998, her first documentary, co-directed with her husband and longtime collaborator Filippo Piscopo, on Nobel laureate Dario Fo, premiered at the Venice Film Festival. She later directed and produced Urbanscapes, exploring the transformation of U.S. cities, and Coal Rush, an investigative film on water contamination in West Virginia’s coal fields, which won awards at the Atlanta Film Festival and Milan Film Festival and was selected at Cannes Docs (Marché du Film).
Her HBO documentary It Will Be Chaos, examining the EU migration crisis, won the Emmy Award for Best Current Affairs Documentary.
Her latest feature documentary, NUNS VS. THE VATICAN, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and went on to win the Subject Matter Award at DOC NYC and the Human Rights Award at the Hamptons Doc Fest.

Alongside her directing work, Lorena contributes as an editor to socially urgent films, including A Tree of Life (DOC NYC 2021) and La Frontera (Sundance Film Festival 2024), continuing her commitment to stories that spark accountability and public dialogue. She has also served as a jury president and jury member at international film festivals and industry awards, reflecting her standing and influence within the global documentary community.
She lives in NYC with her husband and film partner, Filippo Piscopo; they are the parents of two college-age sons.