Richard Martini (director)

Based on his documentary about hypnotherapy and between life therapist Michael Newton's work Destiny of Souls, Martini's book on the afterlife, Flipside: A Tourist's Guide on How To Navigate the Afterlife, has become a best seller at Amazon. The documentary based on the book was picked up by Gaiam TV for distribution in 2014. The book went to #1 at Amazon in all its genres twice. The series It's a Wonderful Afterlife: Further Adventures into the Flipside Volume One and Volume Two includes interviews with Dr. Bruce Greyson on consciousness and the near-death experience, Gary Schwartz on his research into consciousness, and Mario Beauregard on his research in neurotheology. Martini compares accounts of near-death experiences with transcripts of hypnotherapy sessions of people under deep hypnosis to highlight their similarities. His book "Hacking the Afterlife," examines mediumship claims of "new information" from people no longer on the planet and compares these accounts to the near death experiences and afterlife reports from subjects under hypnosis. He also penned "Backstage Pass to the Flipside: Talking to the Afterlife with Jennifer Shaffer" which includes a foreword by Luana Anders.

Martini co-wrote and directed two films for producer Jonathan D. Krane: the Faustian comedy Limit Up, set in Chicago, starring Nancy Allen and blues icon Ray Charles, and Point of Betrayal (1996) starring Dina Merrill, Rod Taylor and Rebecca Broussard, which won the Palm Beach International Film Festival as Best Film. Martini then co-wrote and co-directed Cannes Man (released on iTunes in 2010) starring Francesco Quinn and Seymour Cassel, with appearances by Johnny Depp and the "cast of characters who inhabit the film festival each year."

His first documentary film, Special Olympians, won the top prize at the 1980 Mexico City International Film Festival. He made his feature film directorial debut with You Can't Hurry Love, which featured the debut of Bridget Fonda. TNT described it as the "quintessential 80's comedy."

Richard Martini (born 12 March 1955) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter and freelance journalist.

Martini was born in 1955 and grew up in Northbrook, Illinois. He attended local public schools. He graduated magna cum laude from Boston University with a degree in Humanities, attended University of Southern California Film School and is a 2008 graduate of the Master of Professional Writing Program at USC. His student short film, Lost Angels, was the film debut of fellow Chicago native, actress Daryl Hannah. He took improv classes at Second City in Chicago under Jo Forsberg, and with the Harvey Lembeck Workshop in Los Angeles.