In 1979 after an experience in advertising, first as art director and then as photographer, he began contributing regularly to L'Espresso, photographing writers, poets, artists and the main cultural events of the time. From 1988 to 1994 he was member of the photographic staff of the magazine Radiocorriere TV, the magazine of Rai Italian Television. During the 1995 Venice Film Festival he was the first photographer in Italy to produce a reportage using only a digital camera, the Canon EOS DCS3. In the 1996 founded with Graziano Arici. Rosebud, the first on-line news service to provide cultural images. From 2001 he coordinates Emage, the videojournalistic structure and multimedia lab of Grazia Neri agency. From 2002 he was editor in chief of Makadam, the first italian community of videos and pictures shot with a camera phone. In october 2005 he directed with Barbara Seghezzi "Nuovi comizi d'amore" (New Love Meetings), the first feature film in the world entirely shot with a mobile -phone. The film, a remake of a Pasolini documentary from 1963, was chosen by the Moma Museum of New York as part of Fortnight Exibition, by the IDFA Film Festival of Amsterdam, and by the Zurich Film Festival. Marcello Mencarini is based in Rome and Milan.