Born in Pisa in 1919 and died in 2006, Gillo Pontecorvo was a chemistry student and journalist, who fought in the anti-fascist resistance during the Second World War and then turned to cinema, working as an assistant to Yves Allégret. He made few films, all of them political. Kapò (1960) was set in a concentration camp, and The Battle of Algiers (1966), made in the style of a newsreel with non-professional actors, reconstructs the Algerian struggle against French rule and won the Golden Lion at Venice. It has been shown to military and political groups as a study of urban insurgency.
Filmography
- The Wide Blue Road (1957)
- Kapò (1960)
- The Battle of Algiers (1966)
- Queimada (1969)
- Ogro (1979)