Gilberto Pontecorvo (; 19 November 1919 – 12 October 2006) was an Italian filmmaker associated with the political cinema movement of the 1960s and 1970s. He is best known for directing the landmark war docudrama The Battle of Algiers (1966), which won the Golden Lion at the 21st Venice Film Festival, and earned him Oscar nominations for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay. His other films include the Kapò (1960), a Holocaust drama; Burn! (1969), a period film about a fictional slave revolt in the Lesser Antilles; and Ogro (1979), a dramatization of the assassination of Spanish Prime Minister Luis Carrero Blanco by Basque separatists. He also directed several documentaries and short films. In 2000, he received the Pietro Bianchi Award at the Venice Film Festival. The same year, he was ascended as a Knight's Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic. Early life Pontecorvo, born in Pisa, was the son of a wealthy secular Italian Jewish family. His father was a businessman. Gillo's siblings included brothers Bruno Pontecorvo, an internationally acclaimed nuclear physicist and one of the so-called Via Panisperna boys, who defected to the Soviet Union in 1950; Guido Pontecorvo, a geneticist; and Polì [Paul] Pontecorvo, an engineer who worked on radar after World War II; and David Maraoni; and sisters Giuliana (m. Talbet); Laura (m. Coppa); and Anna (m. Newton). He studied chemistry at the University of Pisa, but dropped out after passing just two exams. There he first became aware of opposition political forces, coming into contact for the first time with leftist students and professors. In 1938, faced with growing antisemitism, he followed his elder brother Bruno to Paris, where he found work in journalism and as a tennis instructor. In Paris, Pontecorvo became involved in the film world, and began by making a few short documentaries. He became an assistant to Joris Ivens, a Dutch documentary filmmaker and well-known Marxist, whose films include Regen and The Bridge. He also assisted Yves Allégret, a French director known for his work in the film noir genre, whose films include Une si jolie petite plage and Les Orgueilleux. In addition to these influences, Pontecorvo began meeting people who broadened his perspectives, among them artist Pablo Picasso, composer Igor Stravinsky and political thinker Jean-Paul Sartre. During this time Pontecorvo developed his political ideals. He was moved when many of his friends in Paris packed