A fictitious interview with Gillo Pontecorvo

Held between Istanbul and Rome, conducted in English, Italian and Spanish, October 2006.

Runo Lagomarsino: Hello Pontecorvo, my name is Runo Lagomarsino, I’m an artist based in Malmö, Sweden.

Gillo Pontecorovo: Hi Runo.

RL: Thank you for giving me the time for this interview.

GP: Your name doesn’t sound so Swedish, more Italian, Lagomarsino.

RL: Yes, my grandfather was from Genoa, but he left to Argentina when he was very young.

GP: Many people did, my uncle also.

RL: Ok, as I wrote in my emails, I have recently made a work about La Bataille d ́Alger and its connection to the ongoing war in Iraq.

GP: Yes, I know, thanks for the pictures, nice work and I like the title, but I never heard talk about this Hélio...sounds interesting.

RL: Hélio Oticica. He was a Brazilian artist. He died in the beginning of the 1980s and I really like his work.
I’m curious to know, how you reflect on the screening that Pentagon did of your film?

GP: First of all, of course they didn’t ask! What can I do...they can just buy the film
at the supermarket.

RL: Or download it from the internet.

GP: But seriously, it has many layers, when the film came out in 1966 I was accused of giving inspiration to all armed groups; The Black Panther Movement, ETA, IRA, not to mention all the resistance groups in Africa. Now I’m accused of telling the “bad” ones the truth...as if they didn’t know it! You know, I’m totally against the war, that Italy sent troops to Iraq was a disaster, una merda!
I’m an old socialist, I fought in the war.

RL: Yes I know.

GP: Screening the film proves that the film is still strong, that it has something to tell about today and not only about the past, but at the same time it is a political tragedy.

RL: How do you mean?

GP: They have just changed the countries, but it is the same war, the same imperialistic war.
In Italian we have a saying that goes like this, Traductore traidore (the translator is
a traitor). Here I’m a traitor. They watch the film to understand and destroy.

RL: I really like the saying, it suits my work very well.
You think they watch your film as an “instruction movie” as if your film is for real?

GP: I think there are many parallels between the two wars, in terms of colonialism and resistance. France and America were not expecting so developed a resistance, many people call it terrorism - I call it resistance. You have to remember, that the French terror was extremely brutal and now Guantanamo and the Abu Ghraib - everything is very similar. Although there are differences between Algeria and Iraq, in the end, Iraq and all other countries, where battles against occupation are taking place, will succeed in defending their independence. In the long run, therefore, I think Iraq will, sooner or later, be a free country.
I hope.

RL: Your film was one of the most important anti-colonial films, that inspired a lot of
people, but suddenly your enemy is watching it, do you feel betrayed, or sorry that you were screwed?

GP: A little bit of both.

RL: Can you expand on that?

GP: I’d rather not.

RL: You made a TV documentary revisiting the people and locals of The Battle
of Algiers?

GP: It was not exactly a documentary. It was my on-camera return 25 years after, but to a completely different situation there.
We made a one-hour short, shot in six days. My lead actor, Yacef Saadi, was still there. We spoke, he gave me advice, and he showed me the situation in the Casbah. It was useful for the filming to have such a friend. The program was broadcast at prime time in Italy. It awoke a great curiosity, since few had ever seen the Casbah from the inside. Because of the film 25 years earlier, the Algerians let me go wherever I wanted. They were very kind to let me film in a prison. We even shot inside a mosque and at a Muslim burial.

RL: What is your relation to Franz Fanon?

GP: Fanon, he is one of the sharpest intellectuals, he and Gramsci have been a source of inspiration, I’m also intrigued by the moments of rage in Fanon.

RL: But more directly, can you talk about Franz Fanon in relation to the film?

GP: The political structure of the film was very inspired by Fanon, his
understanding of the oppression of colonialism and his position on violence.
Then of course the scenes with the women and the bombs passing the
checkpoints were almost directly transformed from his text Algeria Unveiled.

RL: In contemporary art there has been a new interest in different forms of documentary strategies, which in many cases focus on political topics, but you have said that in the film genre there is a lack of that .

GP: Yes I think so, if you compare to the time when I produced La Bataille d ́Alger. There are some exceptions like the Dardenne brothers trilogy, which is very strong, they have an amazing way of making actors and non-actors create this fantastic interpretation. Then of course there is the Iranian film, which combines politics and poetry in a very rare way that is difficult to find in Europe.

RL: Why have you produced so few films throughout your career?

GP: Actually it’s because I prefer music.
(Laughter)

RL: Thank you, Pontecorvo.

GP: No problem, good luck with your work.

RL: Is there something that you want to say before we end the interview?

GP: That United States should leave Iraq this must stop, too many killings.



Gillo Pontecorvo died at the Polyclinic Gemelli Hospital in Rome, the 12 of October 2006, before this interview was printed. He was