Antonio Piazza was a Palermo-based journalist and Fabio Grassadonia an author and college professor when the two men met at a screenwriting workshop in Turin, Italy. Both were seeking a career change. After collaborating on a project at the workshop, their instructor, an established veteran, invited them to join him in Rome.

The duo worked in Italian television for a while, and in 2013 made their impressive debut as writer-directors on Salvo, about a Mafia hitman who has a crisis of conscience when he is ordered to kill a blind woman. The filmmakers were in New York City in June when their latest film, Sicilian Ghost Story (opening Nov. 30 from Strand Releasing), screened at “Open Roads: New Italian Cinema.”