Peter Skerl

Most of Peter Skerl's biography is still hidden in mystery. He started his career in Italy as a stage director in the late 1950s. Later in his life, he claimed that he had worked as an assistant director for Ingmar Bergman during the making of Hour of the Wolf (1968) and Shame (1968), but no source supports this claim. In the early 1970s he moved to Austria and co-wrote the screenplay for Naked Girl Murdered in the Park (1972). Back in Italy, in 1976 Skerl directed Dog Lay Afternoon (1976), but Virgilio Mattei had to be credited as the sole director in order for the movie to be considered an Italian production. After other projects failed to materialize, Skerl moved to the United States. No further detail of his biography is known, except for a last tragic event: his daughter Catherine was murdered in Rome on January 21, 1984.