Cantarini made his film debut in the 1997 Roberto Benigni directed comedy-drama Life is Beautiful, playing Benigni's four-year-old son 'Giosuè Orefice', who is sent with his Jewish-Italian father to a German concentration camp during World War II. The film won three Academy Awards. In 1998, Cantarini was awarded alongside his Life Is Beautiful castmates with a nomination for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture and the same year he won the Young Artist Award.