Elio Petri

Eraclio Petri (29 January 1929 – 10 November 1982), commonly known as Elio Petri, was an Italian film director, screenwriter, theatre director, and critic associated with the political cinema in the 1960s and '70s. His film Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion won the 1971 Oscar for Best Foreign-Language Film, and his film The Working Class Goes to Heaven won the Palme d'Or at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival. Petri's other notable films include The 10th Victim (1965), We Still Kill the Old Way (1967), A Quiet Place in the Country (1968), Property Is No Longer a Theft (1973), and Todo modo (1976). The Museum of Modern Art described him as "one of the preeminent political and social satirists of Italian cinema". Early life Petri was born in Rome on 29 January 1929. He was expelled for political reasons from San Giuseppe di Merode, a school run by a priest on the Piazza di Spagna, and joined the youth organization of the Italian Communist Party (PCI). He wrote for L'Unità and for Gioventù nuova as well as for Città aperta. He left the party in after the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Career Gianni Puccini introduced him to Giuseppe De Santis, who made him assistant to the director of Bitter Rice (1949). He collaborated, without being credited, on Rome 11:00 (1952), one of the least known post-war neo-realist movies. Petri wrote a book about the inquiry into the actual events depicted which was published in 1956.