Tom Volf
Tom Volf
Director
Executive member of Le Soleil Foundation.
Tom Volf
- Director
Executive member of Le Soleil Foundation.
Tom Volf is a french author, director, producer, photographer, and curator. His career started in Paris in 2008 as he entered the team of the Théâtre du Châtelet, working on major productions with international artists such as Placido Domingo, Sting, and David Cronenberg. Simultaneously, he directed several fashion campaigns & institutional films, including a collaboration with OECD. Additionally to his work as director, his work as a photographer expanded from shootings of various artists or writers, to more personal projects leading to two major exhibitions in Paris, such as “Svalbard, a journey through North Pole” in 2009 and “From Tibet to Kathmandu” in 2010 with photographs exclusively made on a Rolleiflex vintage camera showing his particual skills in photography on film.
In 2012, after 3 years working with Théâtre du Châtelet, building a strong & vast artistic experience, Tom moved to New York were he undertook further studies & professional experiences. In 2013, discovering Maria Callas was a turning point in his life, leading to a journey of 5 years creating the film “Maria by Callas, in her own words”. The film came out in 2017 in France, and in over 45 countries in 2018. Award wining documentary and in official selection of over 15 international film festivals, “Maria by Callas” became the french produced film most watched around the world in 2018. Subsequently, Tom Volf published two books (“Maria by Callas” and “Callas Confidential”) gathering numerous previously unknown pictures of Callas, along with some of her lost writings. The same years, he is the creator & curator of a major eponymous exhibition in Paris at La Seine Musicale in 2017, and the following year in Monte Carlo at Grimaldi Forum, inaugurated by Prince Albert and himself. In 2019, he publishes his third book “Maria Callas, Letters & Memoirs”, after two years of work on gathering all of Callas’s letters from various sources all around the world, along with her unfinished memoirs. The book is first published in France (Albin Michel), and subsequently in Italian (Rizzoli), and in Greek (Patakis). In December 2019, Tom Volf approaches Monica Bellucci who accepts to come for the first time on a theatre stage, to perform an adaptation of “Maria Callas Letters & Memoirs”, Tom does the staging, directing, and light & sound design. After the parisian performances at Théâtre Marigny and Bouffes Parisiens, the show starts an international tour, going to Italy, Portugal, and Greece, where a special staging is created for Herod Atticus with a full orchestra. The show now travels in those two versions, and also in three languages, French, Italian, or English, depending on the country where it’s performed. Monica and Tom will present further this show in 2022 and 2023 in Istanbul, London, Spain, Prague, New York, Paris, and L.A. As a photographer, Tom also created the poster of the show, he is the author of a series of photographs of Monica Bellucci portraying Maria Callas.
2023 will mark an important year for Tom Volf, as it will be 10 years since his journey with Maria Callas started, and more importantly the year will celebrate the 100th anniversary of her birth. Tom is already working on a sequel documentary to “Maria by Callas”, a documentary with Monica Bellucci on the shows and its international tour, a new book, and first & foremost the completion of the Callas Museum in Paris, supported by the Callas Foundation (Fonds de Dotation Maria Callas) which was established in Paris back in 2017 by Callas’s closest friends, and of which Tom Volf is now President. The Callas Foundation in Paris is the first official institution, non-profit, dedicated to preserving the personal archives of the artist.
In 2022 there will also be a revival of the Jam Capsule in Paris, first introduced in 2020, for which Tom has created two immersive experiences, one dedicated to Maria Callas, and the other to Flemish painters of the 15th century, with an incredible work of animation and music bringing those paintings alive.
Tom’s further works, aside of all the projects related to Callas, include feature films, theatre and opera stagings, in Paris. He is also currently working on a staging of Norma for the ancient theatre of Epidavros, as well as a staging of Traviata for other opera houses, as well as an original play for the theatre in Athens.
The famous artist Tom Volf will present the performance “Maria Callas-Letters and Memories” with Monica Bellucci in New York City the December of 2022.