Film-maker, born in Pisa, W Italy. Born into an affluent Jewish family, he studied chemistry at Pisa University but was forced to flee to Paris, where he found work as a journalist. In 1941 he joined the Italian Communist Party and returned to Italy to fight with the partisans. After the war he took up first acting and then directing, and went on to produce a number of documentary films. His most notable work was The Battle of Algiers (1966, La Bataille d'Alger), a powerful study of Algeria's fight for independence, filmed using mainly non-professional actors. It was forbidden for many years in France, but received the Lion d'Or at the Venice film festival and was nominated for three Oscars, including best foreign language film. Among later films was Queimada (1969), made in the USA and starring Marlon Brando. He later spent a successful four years as head of the Venice Film Festival (19926).
Gillo Pontecorvo (November 19, 1919 – October 12, 2006) was a Jewish Italian filmmaker, best known for La battaglia di Algeri (The Battle of Algiers) although he directed several movies before its release in 1966, such as the drama Kapò (1960), which takes place in a World War II concentration camp.
He was nominated for the Best Director Oscar in 1969 and in that same year won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, both for The Battle of Algiers. In 2000, he received the Pietro Bianchi Award at the Venice Film Festival.
He was also a screenwriter and composer of film scores.
Life and work
Pontecorvo was born in Pisa, the son of a wealthy Jewish businessman.
In Paris in 1933, Pontecorvo immediately involved himself in the film world, where he made a few short documentaries. He became an assistant to Joris Ivens, whose films include Regen and The Bridge, and also to a Dutch communist documentarian as well as Yves Allegret, a French director known for his work in the film noir genre whose films include Une Si Jolie Petite Plage and Les Orgueilleux.
Pontecorvo joined the Italian Communist Party in 1941. I am merely a man of the Left, like a lot of Italian Jews.”
After World War II and his return to Italy, Pontecorvo made the decision to leave journalism for filmmaking, a move that seems to have been in the making for some time, but was set in motion after he saw Roberto Rossellini's Paisa. He then directed Giovanna, which was one episode of La rosa dei venti (1956), a film made with several directors. In 1957 he directed his first full length film, La grande strada azzurra (The Wide Blue Road), which foreshadowed his mature style of later films. Pontecorvo spent months, and sometimes years, researching the material for his films in order to accurately represent the actual social situations he commented on. In 1961 the film was nominated by the Academy Awards for an Oscar for best foreign-language film. Also in this same year the film won two awards: the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists awarded Didi Perego a Silver Ribbon for best supporting actress, and the Mar del Plata Film Festival awarded Susan Strasberg for best actress.
The Battle of Algiers, a portrayal of the Algerian resistance during the Algerian War, follows in the footsteps of neorealist pioneers such as de Santis and Rossellini, employing the use of newsreel-style footage and non-professional actors and focusing primarily on the disenfranchised population that seldom receives attention from the general media. Pontecorvo was clearly reading Frantz Fanon while making The Battle of Algiers, as many of Fanon's notions are echoed in the film, though often simplified. When the film achieved mass screening in the United States, Pontecorvo received a number of awards, and was also nominated for two Academy Awards for direction and co-writing.
Pontecorvo's next major work, Queimada! (Burn!, 1969), starring Marlon Brando, is another anti-colonial film, this time set in the Antilles. This film also depicts an attempted revolution of the oppressed, with strong anti-colonial message
Pontecorvo continued his series of highly political films with Ogro (1979), which addresses the occurrence of terrorism at the end of Francisco Franco's dwindling regime in Spain. He continued making short films into the early 1990s and directed a follow-up documentary to The Battle of Algiers entitled Ritorno ad Algeri (Return to Algiers, 1992). In 1992, Pontecorvo replaced Guglielmo Biraghi as the director of the Venice Film Festival and directed the festival in 1992, 1993 and 1994. Scribner’s.
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