“THE Genius of Gianni Versace Alive” is likely to be one of the most popular offerings at the coming Italian Film Festival opening on Wednesday.

But it’s a fashion film with a difference, because while it gives us glimpses into the sumptuous surroundings of Versace’s home in South Beach, Miami, and provides insights the character of the individual who changed the world view of men in the fashion industry

When I catch up with its director, Salvatore Zannino by phone to Venice where he’s just arrived for the film festival, I’m initially not quite sure exactly who I’m talking to.

For Zannino is a man of many parts and two identities.

There’s the film producer and a two-time Emmy winner well known for “The Bay”, “Tri” and “Christmas Couples Retreat” but as well, there’s the actor Vincent de Paul, interviewed – though not by himself – in the film as one of the male models engaged by Versace to be far more than just a clothes-peg for glamorous female models.

Quite the contrary, female viewers may be blown away by the interviews with sensationally handsome men.

Zannino explains the double name – they’re both him.

Born Salvatore Vincent de Paul Zannino to Italian parents in Baltimore, US, he enjoys separate professional names, as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences likes to distinguish between actors and director-producers.

“Hollywood is the mothership of film, everything is done in holy worship to the mothership,” he says, which also explains why he divides his time evenly between his three homes in LA, Baltimore and Miami.

A long-time working actor, as Vincent de Paul he got his start acting in the Scandinavian epic “Beowulf” then had a small part in the 1988 cult film “Hairspray”.

His parents owned funeral homes in Maryland, so he was destined for the medical profession and graduated in epidemiology, biomedical ethics and bio statistics from the city’s famous Johns Hopkins University, then moved to Miami Beach to work at Mt Sinai Medical Center.

“But I always knew in my heart of hearts that I wanted to work in the arts,” he tells me.

While working at Mt Sinai he was spotted by Versace, who and signed him up to become one of his regular male models.

He’s since been featured on many magazines covers and in the L’Oreal (France) and Christian Dior (Latin America) campaigns, as well as enjoying a long screen-acting career.

“The Genius of Gianni Versace Alive” is Zannino’s directorial debut, embarked upon when fellow director Scott Cardinal said, “you have such an interesting career and you knew Versace, so why don’t you do a film about him.”

“Scott wanted to make the movie about this amazing house, but I wanted to base it on the male models,” says Zannino.

“I wanted to tell the full picture, so there are interviews – of course with beautiful women, but I wanted to talk to their male counterparts and change the narrative about them.”

“It’s the only industry I can think of where a female model gets paid $1 million, but her male counterpart gets paid $10,000.

“Gianni was about celebrating all beauty and as a result we were catapulted into the industry all of a sudden – we didn’t just look like coat-hangers.”

“Another thing was that Gianni managed to get us on the front covers of magazines, amazing to do that for guys – he was the first.”

There are in-depth interviews with women such as the Versace house designer, Miami artist Allyson Krowitz, who had been a  top Paris model and the Versace house tour guide Sandra Scidmore, who attests to the late designer as having been a ”sweet, kind, nice guy”.

Above all, Zannino aims to capture the ”nice guy” side of Versace and is disappointed at the sensational treatment of his subject’s death by shooting 1997 in the TV series “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: an American crime story”.

“Gianni was not an exploiter,” he says. “Believe it or not, he created power for women, women could, feel important and complete.”

“My movie is based in actual interviews… the models were all interviewed in Gianni’s home in South Beach and each of them told me about the day they met him and about the day he died… I wanted to hear from all of them.”

“The Genius of Gianni Versace Alive”, September 22, 26, October 1, 6 and 16, Palace Electric, September 20-October 18.