Director: Francesco Rosi – Story: from the novel Un anno sull'altopiano by Emilio Lussu – Screenplay: Raffaele La Capria, Francesco Rosi, Tonino Guerra – Director of photography: Pasqualino De Santis– Film editor: Ruggero Mastroianni – Production design: Andrea Crisanti – Set decoration: Ezio Di Monte – Costume design: Franco Caretti, Gabriella Pescucci – Music: Piero Piccioni – Camera operator: Mario Cimini – Production: Prima Cinematografica (Roma), Dubrava Film (Zagabria) - Country: Italy/Yugoslavia - Running time: 101'

Cast: Mark Frechette (Second lieutenant Sassu), Alain Cuny (General Leone), Gian Maria Volonté (Lieutenant Ottolenghi), Giampiero Albertini (Captain Abbati), Pier Paolo Capponi (Lieutenant Santini), Franco Graziosi (Major Ruggero Malchiodi), Mario Feliciani (Colonel Medico), Alberto Mastino (Soldier Marrasi), Brunetto Del Vita (Colonel Stringari), Nini Vingelli (the wounded Neapolitan), Daria Nicolodi (Red Cross nurse), Luigi Pignatelli (Lieutenant Avellini), Francesco D’Adda (Medical Officer) 

The film:

"I can’t define Uomini contro just as an antimilitarist film. I physically show the horror of the war, the cruelty, the bayonet fittings, but above all I want to display the oppression of a class by another inside the war. The farmers don’t understand why they have to die, they don’t understand anything of those symbols disjointed from their reality and belonging to another culture. The general, the character who represents the leading class, is 'mad'. Madness that is also coming from his profession and responsibility." 

[Francesco Rosi, in Michel Cimet, Lorenzo Codelli (curated by), Dossier Rosi, Il Castoro / Museo Nazionale del Cinema , Torino 2008, p. 106]

The film restoration:

The preservation of Uomini contro was based on a reversal belonging to the CSC - Cineteca Nazionale. The original negative of the film has not been found and a duplicate negative of the film was used for the restoration. This duplicate was made by means of a technical procedure, which today is no longer used, that skipped one step by printing from the original negative directly onto invertible film. Even though the resulting material has fairly high definition, it often presents fluctuations in color and dominant doubles that tend to alter the original coloring. Today, efforts are made to recuperate the original tone and density of the color through digital technology.

The preservation - conducted by the Museo Nazionale del Cinema di Torino and the Cineteca Nazionale - was carried out in 2008 at LVR Video Recording Laboratory in Roma.

The preserved copy of Uomini contro was screened in 2008 in Torino during the exhibit dedicated to Francesco Rosi, and it is part of a project to valorize the works by the director, including cataloging and making available his archival material, which was acquired by Museo Nazionale del Cinema between 2003 and 2008.

[http://www.museocinema.it/collezioni/Rosi.aspx]

The Minerva RaroVideo Group published a DVD of the restored film

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