Centennial: Gillo Pontecorvo

100 year ago today in Pisa, Italy, the director Gillo Pontecorvo was born.

He only made five narrative features in his career, which is surely one of the reasons that he's overshadowed in cultural memory by the far more prolific mid 20th century Italian giants Vittorio de Sica and Federico Fellini. Still Pontecorvo's two best known films were both nominated for the Best Foreign Film at the Academy Awards, the concentration camp drama Kapò (1960) and the resistance/war drama The Battle of Algiers (1966). The latter, which won the Golden Lion at Venice in its year, is still revered as a masterpiece. Have you seen either of these classics?