Outlaw Filmmaker
When writer / director Seth Ferranti received a twenty-five year LSD kingpin conviction, after faking his suicide and landing on the US Marshals Top-15 Most Wanted list, he thought his life was over. As a first time, non-violent offender, the lengthy sentence attracted media attention from The Washington Post, Rolling Stone, The Washington Times, and others.
As a drug dealing teen Ferranti sold LSD and marijuana at 15 East Coast colleges, crisscrossing across five states- Virginia, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Maryland- a wanna-be rock star and Hunter S. Thompson-style outlaw whose hero’s were Henry Rollins, Axl Rose, and Jim Morrison. He followed the Grateful Dead and considered himself a counter culture rebel, not a criminal, as he was breaking laws which he thought were wrong.
As a twenty-two year old from the suburbs, who basically grew up as a military brat in California and overseas, the prison sentence Ferranti received due to the War on Drugs was longer than he’d lived to that point. Ferranti blamed the system, blamed his early life, blamed the federal government, blamed the narco soldiers, and blamed the people that he’d been around.
Despair soon turned to drive as Seth embarked to rise above his past and focus on his future. He decided it was time to stop blaming things outside himself and start utilizing his talents to document the world around him. He began building a writing and journalism career from inside the belly of the beast. With unlimited access to criminals and their stories Ferranti started crafting raw portrayals of prison life and crack era gangsters. Discovering a passion and talent for writing Ferranti also studied the trade earning an associates, bachelors, and masters degree while in prison.
Ferranti started penning prison and gangster stories for VICE, Don Diva, FEDS, Hoopshype and others. His success was evident at that point and it was time to establish a brand, namely, Gorilla Convict. Ferranti became a true-crime publisher and built a website documenting stories that the mainstream media was not willing to share. These stories exist in his books- Prison Stories, Supreme Team, and Street Legends, among others. In February 2015, after serving 21 years, he was released from the Bureau of Prison, to seek his fortune.
Back in the world Ferranti continued his writing career as a journalist penning pieces for VICE, OZY, The Daily Beast, Dazed, MERRY JANE, and features for Penthouse and Real Crime Magazines, among others. He also started writing and publishing comic books under his imprint GR1ND Studios and embarked on his true passion, filmmaking.
Fresh out of prison Ferranti wrote and directed a web-series, Easter Bunny Assassin, played the antagonist in an indie feature, Dog Days, and joined forces with Shawn Rech and Transitions Studios to make WHITE BOY, a feature documentary on Richard Wershe Jr. that is now airing on STARZ.
VICELAND also shot an episode on Ferranti’s case, HAVE DRUG WILL TRAVEL, which will premiere in their new series FINE YOUNG CRIMINALS in 2020. Ferranti also has two documentaries in production, NIGHTLIFE and DOPE MEN, and his two short films JESUS CHRIST JUNKIE and THE PRECIOUS AND THE DAMNED are currently playing at film festivals. He also produced a series of interviews on Al Profits Youtube channel that have gotten 100’s of thousands of views.
