Gillo Pontecorvo
Directing
Biography
Gillo Pontecorvo, born November 19, 1919 in Pisa and died October 12, 2006 in Rome, is an Italian filmmaker. Of Italian Jewish origin, Gillou Pontecorvo is the brother of Bruno Pontecorvo, a nuclear physicist working for the USSR, and Guido Pontecorvo, an Italian-British geneticist, as well as the grandson of the Jewish industrialist Pellegrino Pontecorvo. He has three sons: Marco (cinematographer and director), Simone (painter) and Ludovico (physicist). A chemist by training, he quickly turned to journalism and became correspondent in Paris for several Italian publications. In 1941, he joined the Italian Communist Party (PCI), and participated in anti-fascist activities in northern Italy. After the Soviet repression of the Budapest uprising in 1956, he broke with the PCI, while continuing to claim Marxism. He started in cinema after the Second World War as assistant to Yves Allégret1 and Mario Monicelli in particular. From 1953, he produced his first documentary essays (Giovanna, MM, 1956). In 1956, he contributed to an episode of Die Windrose, supervised by Alberto Cavalcanti. The following year, he directed his first feature film, A Called Squarcio (La grande strada azzurra, produced by Maleno Malenotti, based on a novel by Franco Solinas). Then he describes the concentration camp world in the film Kapò (1960), the story of a Jewish woman who becomes an auxiliary of the Nazis. The film was nominated for an Oscar for best foreign language film in 1961. It gave rise to a famous controversy over the "Kapò tracking shot", which Jacques Rivette had deemed unworthy in an article in Cahiers du cinéma entitled "De l' abjection.” In 1966, he directed his most important film, The Battle of Algiers (La Battaglia di Algeri), a reconstruction of the police action of the French army during the Battle of Algiers which was a fundamental episode of the war. from Algeria. This film was awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Festival, but remained banned in France for a long time and its exploitation caused a lot of uproar linked to the scenes of torture committed by the French army. In Queimada (1969), dominated by the interpretation of Marlon Brando, he once again attacks colonialism, with an evocation of the Haitian revolution at the beginning of the 19th century. Faced with the commercial failure of Queimada, Pontecorvo stopped making films. He still directed a secondary film, Operation Ogre (Ogro, 1979), on the assassination of Luis Carrero Blanco by ETA during Francoism, and collaborated on the film L'addio a Enrico Berlinguer (1984). In 1992, he was appointed director of the Venice Film Festival. In 1993, during the 50th edition of the Mostra, Pontecorvo presented Steven Spielberg with an honorary Golden Lion, at the time of the release of Schindler's List. He died on October 12, 2006, at the age of 86, in Rome, Italy.
Known For
Paratrooper commander Colonel Mathieu, a former French Resistance fighter during World War II, is sent to Algeria to reinforce efforts to squelch the uprisings of the Algerian War. There he faces Ali la Pointe, a former petty criminal who, as the leader of the Algerian Front de Liberation Nationale, directs terror strategies against the colonial French government occupation. As each side resorts to ever-increasing brutality, no violent act is too unthinkable.
The Battle of Algiers
Determined to survive at any price, Edith, a young Jewish woman deported to an extermination camp, manages to survive by accepting the role of kapo, a privileged prisoner whose mission is to ruthlessly guard other prisoners.
Kapo
A group of "respectable" people are all partly responsible for the suicide of a servant girl. They are pounced upon by a wily blackmailer, who knows that these people will pay dearly rather than inform on themselves or others.
The Unfaithfuls
An incredibly dull-witted family unknowingly stumble upon an illegal weapons deal while on the trail of their "stolen" garbage.
The Stupids
The professional mercenary Sir William Walker instigates a slave revolt on the Caribbean island of Queimada in order to help improve the British sugar trade. Years later he is sent again to deal with the same rebels that he built up because they have seized too much power that now threatens British sugar interests.
Burn!
Spain, 1973. Dictator Francisco Franco has ruled the country since 1939 with an iron fist; but he is now a very old and sick man. The future of the weakened regime is in danger. Admiral Carrero Blanco is his natural successor. The Basque terrorist gang ETA decides that he must die to prevent the dictatorship from continuing.
Operation Ogre
A neorealist tribute to the Italian resistance fighters of World War II.
Outcry
An international anthology about the struggles of female workers around the world.
The Wind Rose
A documentary on the director’s career, featuring interviews with friends, collaborators, and filmmakers.
Elio Petri: Notes About a Filmmaker
A film of Enrico Berlinguer's funeral in Rome, briefly tracing his career as leader of the Italian Communist Party.
Farewell to Enrico Berlinguer
Six vignettes explore love and desire in Rome, from prostitution and heartache to unwed motherhood and the male gaze.
Love in the City
No description available.
The Spring of 2002 - Italy Protests, Italy Stops
Francesco Maselli pitched this documentary to the CGIL, CISL, and UIL trade unions as part of the 1.5 million-strong protest march on November 12, 1994 against Silvio Berlusconi's projects on social security and the reform of the pension system. A large number of directors, cinematographers, camera operators and technicians from all over the country worked for free in 22 different crews, chronicling one of largest political gatherings ever held in Italy.
Rome, November 12, 1994
During a police raid at Villa Borghese, the agent, a widower named Antonio Caccavallo, stays to get better acquainted with the young Carolina.
Toto and Carolina
Homo Cinematographicus is a human species whose unit of measurement and point of reference is the cinema and its derivative, television. Filmed at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival, the film offers an unspecified number of statements, talking about memories and a thousand fragments of stories, titles and film scenes, the warp of a gigantic collective Chanson de geste.
Homo Cinematographicus
Promotional omnibus film, made for the 1990 FIFA World Cup in Italy, featuring portraits of 12 Italian cities.
12 Directors for 12 Cities
Pontecorvo is one of those Italian filmmakers marked for life by neorealism. He declares that he decided to do cinema after leaving a screening of "Paisa" by Roberto Rossellini. The future filmmaker was then in Paris, a year after a war during which he became one of the main figures of the Italian resistance and one of the founders of the Youth Front. Leaving his status as a war hero behind him, Pontecorvo made his directorial debut with "Giovanna", a short film heralding a cinematic career dedicated to what he himself calls the "dictatorship of truth."
Gillo of Ladies and Knights, of Loves and Arms
This 17-minute documentary is featured on the 3-Disc Criterion Collection DVD of The Battle of Algiers (1966), released in 2004. An in-depth look at the Battle of Algiers through the eyes of five established and accomplished filmmakers; Spike Lee, Steven Soderbergh, Oliver Stone, Julian Schnabel and Mira Nair. They discuss how the shots, cinematography, set design, sound and editing directly influenced their own work and how the film's sequences look incredibly realistic, despite the claim that everything in the film was staged .
Five Directors On The Battle of Algiers
No description available.
Franco Cristaldi e il suo cinema Paradiso
Squarciò, a fisherman, lives with his family on a small island off the Dalmatian coast of Italy. Like his fellow villagers, Squarciò struggles against harsh living conditions, a scarcity of fish in nearby waters and exploitation by the local wholesaler. But while the other fishermen continue to use nets, he goes out to the open sea to fish illegally with bombs. But Squarciò borrows money, loses his boat, and in a moment of supreme desperation, has to bomb directly off-shore, causing the hatred and rejection of his fellow fishermen. Trying to save his family, Squarciò and his young sons sail their new boat out beyond the local waters and bomb-fish again. But this time, the sea exacts a terrible toll…