Gillo Pontecorvo was an Italian film director. The movie “La battaglia di Algeri,” which he made, is his most well-known work. He was born at the end of the First World War into a wealthy, well-educated family. While he was a student at the University of Pisa, he was taught communist ideas. Soon, he stopped going to school and went to work as a journalist in France. While he was there, he joined the Communist party. After that, he went back to Italy and started working for the underground newspaper of the party. After the Second World War, he stopped being a journalist and started making movies to share his ideas. He first made documentaries with his own money, but at the beginning of the 1950s, the Italian government gave him money to make a movie about how the Soviet Union helped flood victims in the Po Valley. At the end of the decade, he made “La grande strada Azzurra,” which was his first full-length feature film. But “La Battaglia di Algeri,” a movie about Algeria’s fight for freedom from the French, is what he is best known for. “Kap” is another well-known work by him. Compared to other people his age, he had made very few movies. This was mostly because he couldn’t make a movie unless he cared about the subject.
Childhood and Adolescence
Gillo Pontecorvo was born into a prominent family in Pisa, Italy, on November 19, 1919. Massimo Pontecorvo, his father, was a Jewish industrialist who owned three textile mills with over 1,000 employees. Maria née Maroni, his mother, was a member of the Chiesa Evangelica Valdese and a Protestant.
Gillo was the sixth of eight children born to his parents. Guido, his eldest brother, went on to become a known geneticist, Paolo, his second brother, worked on radar during WWII, and Bruno, his third brother, went on to become a distinguished nuclear physicist. Guiliana was his older sister, Giovanni was his younger brother, and Laura and Anna were his younger sisters.
Gillo, after graduating from high school, enrolled in the University of Pisa to study chemistry, but dropped out after two exams. He first became aware of the fight between political forces and came under the influence of communist ideology around this time.
With Mussolini’s race laws in place and rising anti-Semitism in Italy, Gillo relocated to Paris, where his brother Bruno had already established himself. He started working as a journalist here.
He and his future wife Henrietta fled to St Tropez when Paris fell under German occupation. He began giving tennis lessons to the wealthy folks of the area. He met pianist René Leibowitz, who was also in exile and began studying piano with him.
Gillo Pontecorvo became a secret member of the Italian Communist Party in 1941. He went to Italy on a news-gathering trip in 1942 and worked for his party’s underground publication, L’Unita, in Milan during the summer of 1943. He also helped organize the party’s youth wing.
He was forced into hiding in 1944 and relocated to Turin, where he began organizing factory workers under the alias Barnaba. He became the director of Pattuglia, a united Communist and Socialist youth publication, after the war.
Pontecorvo then returned to Paris as Italy’s delegate to the Youth World Federation. He became friends with Jean-Paul Sartre and Pablo Picasso here. He afterward joined the Communist-backed World Federation of Democratic Youth to represent Italy.
Gillo Pontecorvo’s Career
Pontecorvo changed its course in 1946. That was the year he saw Roberto Rossellini’s ‘Paisà’ and decided to make films as part of his political activism. He then stopped working as a journalist and began shooting anything that intrigued him with a 16mm camera and his own money.
In 1947, he worked as Aldo Vergano’s third assistant director in ‘Il Sole Sorge Ancora,’ also acting in a small role as a peasant. Other assistantships followed, and in 1950 he worked as an assistant director on ‘I Miracoli Non Si Ripetono’ with Yves Allegret (Miracles Only Happen Once).
He gradually began producing socially important short documentaries for which he won funding from the Italian government. In 1953, he directed his first big documentary. It was titled ‘Missione Timiriazev’ and it documented Soviet assistance to flood victims in Northern Italy’s Po Valley. A 35mm camera was used for the session.
He then created two documentaries in 1954. ‘Porta Portese’ was on display at the famed flea market at the historic city entrance of Porta Portese on Rome’s southern outskirts, while ‘Festa a Castelluccio’ (Dogs Behind the Bar) was on display in the municipal dog pound.
In 1955, Pontecorvo produced a variety of documentaries. ‘Uomini del marmo,”Cani dietro le sbarre,’ and ‘Festa a Castellucio’ are among the most notable. His 1956 documentary ‘Pane e Zolfo,’ on the decline of community feeling at a closed sulfur mine in the Marche region, was also a success.
Joris Iven persuaded him to participate in his episodic film ‘Die Windrose’ in 1956. He included a short feature film called “Giovanna.” It portrays the narrative of a lady working in a textile mill who is torn between her husband’s allegiance and her commitment to her striking coworkers.
With Maleno Malenotti, he directed his first full-length feature film, ‘La grande Strada Azzurra (The Wide Blue Road), in 1957. It depicts the story of a poor fisherman who lives on a little island off the coast of Dalmatia, Italy.
On September 29, 1960, his next feature picture, ‘Kap,’ was released. He not only directed the Holocaust-themed film, but he also co-wrote the screenplay with Franco Solinas. It received an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film.
He also created the documentary ‘Gli uomini del Lago in the same year. After that, he took a pause and in 1963 created another documentary, ‘Paras.’ Meanwhile, he began looking for a suitable subject for his next picture, going through at least thirty-three options before deciding.
Finally, he chose to make a film about the 1954–1962 war between Italy and Algeria. In September of 1966, the film ‘La Battaglia di Algeri’ (The Battle of Algiers) was released. The picture sparked intense political debate in France, where it was banned for five years.
However, it was well received in other countries and received numerous prizes. It was also nominated for three Academy Awards (Best Screenplay, Best Direction, and Best Foreign Language Film), but didn’t win any of them.
In 1969, he released his next film, ‘Queimada’ (Burn!). The film, which starred Marlon Brando, was based on the role of adventurer William Walker, who backs a slave revolt in the Spanish Caribbean to further British interests.
He made ‘Operación Ogro’ in 1979. The film is based on the assassination of Spanish Prime Minister Carrero Blano by ETA Basque militants in 1973. His final feature film was this one.
After that, he only made a few documentaries, one of which was ‘Ritorno ad Algeri’ (Return to Algiers, 1992), a follow-up to The Battle of Algiers. ‘Danza della fata Confetto’ and ‘Nostalgia di protezione’ were two short feature films he made during this time.
Pontecorvo also attempted to make a few additional feature films, but they were never completed. ‘I Tempi Della Fine’ (Time of the World’s End) was one such proposal, in which Jesus Christ was to be presented as a Marxist revolutionary. He also planned to make a film about Nicaragua’s social difficulties, but that project fell through.
Pontecorvo is well known for the film “La Battaglia di Algeri,” which he directed in 1966. The video attempts to reconstruct what happened in the capital city of French Algeria between November 1954 and December 1957 during the country’s War of Independence.
Achievements and Awards
Pontecorvo earned the Golden Lion Award for his efforts in ‘La Battaglia di Algeri’ at the Venice Film Festival in 1966. He won a BAFTA Award for the same work in 1972.
For his work in ‘Queimada’ (Burn! ), he earned the David di Donatello Award for Best Director in 1970. He won the same award for ‘Operación Ogro’ in 1980.
Pontecorvo was chosen as a jury member for the 41st Berlin International Film Festival in 1991.
He became the Director of the Venice Film Festival in 1992 and was in charge of the show’s organization in 1992, 1993, and 1994.
Personal History and Legacy
Pontecorvo met his future wife Henrietta while residing in Paris during WWII. Pontecorvo and Henrietta fled to St Tropez after the Germans conquered Paris, where they married. They eventually separated ways.
Pontecorvo then married Teresa Ricci and had three kids with her: Ludovico, Marco, and Simone. Marco Pontecorvo, for example, followed in his father’s footsteps and became a filmmaker.
Pontecorvo spent most of his free time later in life filming commercials, tending to his plants, composing music, and playing tennis. He also began collecting glass paintings and began scuba diving.
Pontecorvo died of congestive heart failure on October 12, 2006, in Rome. He was 86 years old at the time, and his wife and three sons survived him.
Estimated Net worth
Gillo Pontecorvo has a $1.5 million net worth.