SUPPS: The Movie is the first feature-length documentary ever produced on the history, evolution and current state of the sports supplement industry.
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"SUPPS": abbreviation for the word "Supplements". American slang term used online amongst the health & fitness community
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In September 2017 Alex Ardenti started searching online for documentaries regarding the history of sports supplements. Not vitamins and minerals or herbal remedies but the products that he fell in love with when he started lifting weights at home at the age of 12. The products that were designed to make people big and strong. Protein shakes, amino acids, creatine etc. He wasn't able to find a single profesionally produced piece on these products that were used by millions of people around the world. This $40 Billion market didn't have a single documentary on it's origin story nor the current state of the market.
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His love for all things fitness, particularly bodybuilding, met his passion for documentary filmmaking. As one of the most prolific commercial directors of sports supplement commercials and having origins as an advertising photographer for many legacy brands Ardenti was clearly the most qualified filmmaker on the planet to create a feature documentary about the subject. Without him realising it this true labor of love had been accumulating information and stories for decades through his professional career and the first treatment of the SUPPS: The Movie narrative poured out of him in a few hours.
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Defying the tried and true Hollywood road of knocking on doors to obtain funding Ardenti chose to self fund and produce the documentary through his company Ardenti Films and retain complete control over the storyline and retain historical accuracy of the project. Two years later SUPPS: The Movie was finally ready to be released to the public.
Alex Ardenti biography
Producer/Director of SUPPS: The Movie
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Originally from Rome, Italy, Alex Ardenti moved to Wollongong, Australia at the age of three. While his parents were busy opening the family's first restaurant, Alex was avidly taking pictures of the world around him with an instamatic camera he received for his seventh birthday. His dad's super 8mm movie camera soon became his next toy to play with and he made his first commercials at this time using his sister and pets as actors.
Upon the Ardenti family's return to Italy, Alex by now a teenager, began lifting weights and by seventeen had become the country's youngest Mr. Italy. He followed that victory by winning the European Junior Bodybuilding Championships at nineteen while in the ItalianMilitary Police. He admits that movies like Rocky and Conan motivated him to start building his body and completely changed the course of his life. It was his success as a young bodybuilder that led him to believe that his dreams were attainable and that anything was possible if he dedicated himself to it andworked hard enough at it. Fascinated by the California lifestyle he read about in magazines and saw on TV and American movies Alex made the move to Los Angeles in the late '80s. Photography and filmmaking had taken a back seat to his bodybuilding career during hiscompetitive years in Italy but re-emerged in full force once he came in contact with Hollywood. He felt they were his true calling all along. Even though in Rome he often played bit roles such as Hercules (Young Hercules in the Lou Ferrigno film) and countless live TV performances and interviews, it was in Los Angeles that he stepped in front of the camera professionally at this stage in his life and supplemented his photography business by appearing in dozens of national commercials along with several TV show appearances. He was selected by Ridley Scott for a 7 UP commercial, played Kelly Bundy's last boyfriend on Married With Children and appeared several times in sketches on In Living Color and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno during the '90s and early 2000s.
In 2007 he founded Ardenti Films, a boutique commercial production company specializing in the health & fitness industry. The company has since produced spots for American Gladiators Fitness, UFC Gym, Coast Fitness, Mutant, Pre Fight, Horsepower, Upload, Multi Power and Scorpion Helmets to name a few. In the summer of 2013 Juntobox Films, a company co-created by Forest Whittaker, gave him a green light to direct his first feature film "The Driver" scheduled for summer 2016 but lack of funding halted the project. In September 2017 Alex began pre-production on a feature length documentary on the sports supplement industry titled SUPPS: The Movie and in January 2019 he began production on the first in-depth documentary series on the world of fitness: ACCESS MUSCLE.
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Alex has collaborated as an editorial photographer with over 35 international publications and has produced countless advertising campaigns in the last 25 years. He has well over 1,500 published magazine covers to his credit and is considered by many to be one of the most creative and artistic forces in the fitness industry. SUPPS: The Movie and ACCESS MUSCLE have been released on several digital streaming platforms.
Alex lives in Hollywood and has three young boys: Atticus, August and Ashton. He visits family and friends regularly in Italy and Australia.
