In compartecipazione. Italian and Algerian films in the 1960s

Abstract

This paper focuses on a handful of films made between Italy and Algeria in the late 1960s. I analyse the trajectory from political and militant interactions—Ennio Lorenzini’s Le Mains libres and Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers, La Battaglia di Algeri, both produced in Algeria by the Casbah film—to more strictly industrial and financial preoccupations which we can trace in a heterogenous group of films: Luchino Visconti’s The Stranger (Lo straniero, 1967), an adaptation of Camus’s book of the same title; Sergio Spina’s The Golden Donkey (L’asino d'oro: processo per fatti strani contro Lucius Apuleius cittadino romano, 1970), based on Apuleius’ Metamorphoses; Mario Monicelli’s comedy Brancaleone at the Crusades (Brancaleone alle crociate, 1970), and Enzo Peri’s Spaghetti Western Death Walks in Laredo (Tre pistole contro Cesare, 1967). Combining an archival, historical, and cultural approach with a consideration of the business models involved, I discuss why these Italian directors and producers went to Algeria, what kind of collaborations were in place, and what were the long-lasting effects of these productions.