Gillo Pontecorvo

Gillo Pontecorvo, born as Gilberto Pontecorvo (1919-11-19)19 November 1919 was an Italian filmmaker notable for his association with the political cinema movement of the 1960s and 1970s. He is best known for directing The Battle of Algiers (1966), a landmark war docudrama which won him the Golden Lion at the 27th Venice Film Festival, and earned him Oscar nominations for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay. His other films include Kapò (1960), Burn! (1969), and Ogro (1979). Pontecorvo was also a renowned director of several documentaries and short films. Despite breaking ties with the Communist party in 1956, Pontecorvo retained his dedication to Marxism. He was quoted as saying, 'I am not an out-and-out revolutionary. I am merely a man of the Left, like a lot of Italian Jews.' He continued his series of highly political films with Ogro (1979), which addresses the occurrence of Basque terrorism at the end of Francisco Franco's dwindling dictatorship in Spain. He then directed a follow-up documentary to The Battle of Algiers, entitled Ritorno ad Algeri (Return to Algiers, 1992). He died from congestive heart failure in Rome at age 86.