Giuliano Montaldo was born in Genoa (1930). He began his career in cinema as an actor and later became assistant director (with Carlo Lizzani) and worked with Gillo Pontecorvo (in Kapò and The Battle of Algiers). He started his work as a director with Tiro al piccione (1961), a film against fascism. He then wrote and directed Una bella grinta (1965), winner of the special jury award at the Berlin Festival. It was followed by Dio è con noi (1969), Sacco e Vanzetti (1970, Palme d’Or at Cannes) and Giordano Bruno (1973), a trilogy of films that denounce the death penalty and abuses of military, judicial and religious power; L’Agnese va morire (about the Resistance), and Marco Polo (for television). His other films include the episode La moglie svedesa (in the collective film Extraconiugale), Gli occhiali d’oro, Il giorno prima, Tempo d’uccidere, Le stragione dell’aquila and the documentary L’oro di Cuba.
He has directed such actors as Burt Lancaster, Gian Maria Volonte, Stefania Sandrelli, Nicolas Cage, Edward G. Robinson, John Cassavettes, Giancarlo Giannini, Philippe Noiret, Valeria Golino, Ben Gazzara, Ingrid Thulin, Nino Manfredi and Marlene Jobert. Passionate about opera, he has directed Turandot, Otello, Nabucco, The Magic Flute and Un ballo in maschera among others. He was president of RAI Cinema from 1999 to 2002 and has been named Cavaliere di Gran Croce by the President of the Republic. He recently made The Demons of St. Petersburg and is currently preparing a new film.
LiberPress Cinema Award 2009
He received the LiberPress Cinema Award for his career in the cinema, dedicated to denouncing excesses of power, totalitarianism and the death penalty; for his anti-war stance and, especially, for having devoted himself, from a position of total independence, to fighting against intolerance, which he has always considered to be the great problem of humanity, and trying to find a beautiful new idea to change things and the world every day.