07.05.25, 20:30, A Bullet for the General (1967)

Keep your friends close and your shooters closer, Kinoautomat closes the season with a bang.

A Bullet for the General (Quién Sabe?) is Damiano Damiani's most celebrated feat. Throughout the 60s and 70s, this Italian director made a name for himself with top-tier political pulp films. His western debut takes the Mexican revolution as the backdrop for an epic about friendship, loyalty and human duty. The film tells the story of the bandit El Chucho (Gian Maria Volonté), who rose to guerrilla fighter status. By raiding ammunition trains and trading weapons, he gains the trust of the Zapatista forces. However, his ideals are put to the test when he meets the mysterious Bill Tate (Klaus Kinski). This angel-blue-eyed American businessman joins his gang of train robbers, but not without ulterior motives.

Our guest speaker on duty turns his guns on the politics of the spaghetti western. In the 1960s, Italy excelled in making socially engaged violence films and other red-tinted genre exercises. Figures like Sergio Leone and Sergio Corbucci thus tried to bring their Marxist beliefs to the wider public. Damiani also did his bit.

This film will be introduced by film expert and radio producer Gijs Suy.