Gillo Pontecorvo

He was the younger brother of nuclear physicist Bruno Pontecorvo (1913-1993), the Harwell scientist who defected to the Soviet Union in 1950.

He was born into a Jewish family. He moved to France in 1938 to escape Italy's fascist racial laws. He eventually returned to Italy and led a Resistance brigade during WWII. After the war, he studied chemistry and worked as a journalist before becoming a film director; he started out making documentaries.

Gillo Pontecorvo was an Italian filmmaker. He is best known for his 1966 masterpiece, The Battle of Algiers, widely viewed as one of the finest films of its genre: realistic though fictionalized documentary. Its portrayal of the Algerian resistance during the Algerian War uses the neorealist style pioneered by fellow Italian film directors de Santis and Rossellini, employing newsreel-style footage and non-professional actors, and focusing primarily on a disenfranchised population that seldom receives attention from the general media. Though very much Italian neorealist in style, Pontecorvo co-produced with an Algerian film company. The Battle of Algiers achieved great success and influence. It was widely screened in the United States, where Pontecorvo received a number of awards. He was also nominated for two Academy Awards.

Pontecorvo's next major work, Queimada! (Burn!, 1969), is also anti-colonial, this time set in the Antilles. This film (starring Marlon Brando) depicts an attempted revolution of the oppressed.

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.

Member of the jury at the Venice Film Festival in 1980.

Member of the jury at the Venice Film Festival in 1982.

Member of the jury at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1991