In Remembrance: Gillo Pontecorvo

     Gillo Pontecorvo, the Italian filmmaker best known for his powerful 1966 war epic The Battle Of Algiers, has passed away on October 12, 2006 in Rome, Italy. He was 86.

     Born Gilberto Pontecorvo on November 19, 1919 in Pisa, Italy, the director moved to France in 1938 to escape the rise of radical Fascism in his home country. As World War Two began to consume Europe, Pontecorvo began traveling back and forth between Milan, Italy and France, coordinating various anti-Fascists groups. He eventually stayed in Milan to head a resistance brigade for the remainder of the war. Following the end of the war, Pontecorvo studied chemistry and worked as a journalist.

     Pontecorvo got his start in film as a director of documentaries with 1953’s Missione Timiriazev. After a handful of more documentaries, Pontecorvo moved to feature films with the 1957 drama La Grande Strada Azzurra (The Wide Blue Road) starring Yves Montand and Alida Valli. He followed up the film by channeling his political passions and war experiences towards features with 1959’s Kapo, the story of a young Jewish girl attempting to escape from a concentration camp.

     Due to the small number of films he directed and the length of time between them, Pontecorvo earned the nickname of “lazy director.” More than a decade passed between his 1969 drama Queimada (aka Burn!) and his next film Orgo (aka Operation Ogre, 1980).

     For his 1966 classic The Battle of Algiers, Pontecorvo called upon his documentary experience to bring audiences closer into his story of the Algerian uprising against the French. So powerful was the film, that it was banned in France for several years. The film won a Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and received Academy Award nominations for Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Foreign Film. The United States Pentagon considered the movie accurate enough to screen it for military and civilian experts as a training aid in 2003.

     Pontecorvo’s other films include L’Addio A Enrico Berlinguer (1984), Nostalgia Di Protezione (1997) and Firenze, Il Nostro Domani (2003). He also served as director of the Venice Film Festival from 1992 to 1994.