Coming soon: Gillo Pontecorvo. One battle after another

Twenty years after Gillo Pontecorvo’s death and sixty years after The Battle of Algiers was awarded the Golden Lion, the Museo Nazionale del Cinema pays tribute to the great director with an exclusive exhibition showcasing the Gillo Pontecorvo Archive. Donated to the Museum by his family, it is now one of the most important documentary collections devoted to an Italian filmmaker. This extraordinary heritage forms the basis of Gillo Pontecorvo. Una battaglia dopo l'altra (Gillo Pontecorvo. One Battle After Another), curated by Mauro Genovese with Caterina Massignani.

The exhibition offers an immersive journey into the director’s creative, intellectual and civic world, made possible by an exceptionally comprehensive archive documenting every stage of his multifaceted career: from his years in the Resistance to his work as a journalist, from the making of his cinematic masterpieces to the cultural projects of the final years of his life.

The exhibition is structured around the major “battles” that shaped Pontecorvo’s life and cinema: the partisan struggle in which he personally took part; remembrance of the Holocaust; the Algerian people’s right to self-determination and the condemnation of colonialism; and the struggle for the emancipation of women and young people. These themes run throughout his filmography and reach their fullest expression in The Battle of Algiers (1966). The section devoted to the director’s best-known film—which was also referenced by P. T. Anderson in One Battle After Another—is complemented by focuses on his other works: Giovanna (1955), Kapo (1960), Burn! (1969), and Aldo Vergano’s The Sun Still Rises (1946), in which Pontecorvo appeared as an actor.

The exhibition is further enhanced by an exceptionally valuable loan: thanks to the collaboration of the Pontecorvo family, the original Golden Lion awarded to The Battle of Algiers at the 1966 Venice International Film Festival will be displayed to the public for the first time.

Designed with particular attention to young people and school groups, the exhibition brings together cinema, history and citizenship, encouraging visitors to reflect on the value of historical sources, memory and the continuing relevance of the issues addressed by Pontecorvo. At the same time, it offers all visitors a unique opportunity to explore the archive of one of the twentieth century’s greatest filmmakers and, through original and largely unseen materials, discover the origins of a body of work that continues to challenge and question the present.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a film retrospective at Cinema Massimo, an educational resource pack curated by Paola Bortolaso, and film lectures for schools.