Alberto Cavallone, a renowned Italian film director and screenwriter, was born on August 28, 1938, in Milan, Italy. He is notable for his unconventional films that often combine graphic violence, surrealism, and eroticism.
At the age of 17, Cavallone embarked on a remarkable journey to Algeria, which was in the midst of a war of independence, equipped with a 16mm Paillard motion picture camera. The footage he captured there served as the foundation for his initial film endeavor, La sporca guerra (The Bloody War),intended as a non-aligned political documentary. The film featured an early score by Pino Donaggio and was released in 1959, although it is now lost.
Cavallone's feature debut, Lontano dagli occhi (Out of Sight),was the story of an Italian reporter's coverage of a trial in Frankfurt of former Nazi officers for crimes against humanity. Unfortunately, the film was never completed and remains unseen.
After a five-year period of apprenticeship, during which he assisted direction on numerous Italian pictures, Cavallone returned to directing in 1969 with the feature Le salamandre, a tale of an interracial ménage-à-trois between a Swedish-American fashion photographer, her lover, a black model, and a French psychologist. The film was shot in Tunisia and received positive reviews, significantly elevating Cavallone's profile.
