Giovanni Brass (born 1933), better known as Tinto Brass, is one of the most well-known Italian filmmakers. He is especially known for his erotic films, such as Cosi Fan Tutte, Paprika and Monella. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, however, he created many avant-garde films, such as Nerosubianco, L'urlo, and La Vacanza. He is best known for his erotic epics, Salon Kitty, The Key, and Caligula, which was a collaboration with celebrated author Gore Vidal, Franco Rossellini (nephew of the Italian filmmaker, Roberto Rossellini), and Penthouse magazine publisher Bob Guccione. However, many consider Caligula to not be a true Tinto Brass film because post-production was not handled by Brass. In spite of this, it contains many of Brass's trademarks and remains his most widely-viewed work (and the highest-grossing Italian film ever released in the United States).

Brass' films follow an impressionistic style-that is, not showing immense landscapes, but bits and pieces of the scenery and peripheral characters and objects through pans and zooms, thus imitating how the viewer might see the events if they were actually present. This also gives the films an extraordinarily rapid pace. He often uses a television-like multicam method of shooting, with at least three cameras running at once, each focusing on something else.

There are many directorial trademarks throughout his films. From 1976's Salon Kitty on, mirrors play a big part in the set design. Sometimes he even goes as far as to begin a scene with a mirror shot, then pan over to the action being reflected, giving a disorienting feeling. Many of his films also contain instances of animal abuse: L'Urlo contains scenes of a man killing a mouse, and a goose being decapitated on camera; Salon Kitty contains a graphic scene of pigs being gutted in a slaughterhouse. In addition, he almost always works in a cameo for his friend Osiride Pevarello, and, in more recent years, for himself.