Enclosure

L'Enclos

In a Nazi concentration camp, Karl, a German political prisoner, is sentenced to death for having steno-graphed forbidden radio programs. Another convict, David, is a modest clockmaker from Paris who had survived because he could repair the watches of the SS. The two Nazi camp commanders make a perverted bet: they lock both of the prisoners in a barbed wire enclosure and promise freedom to the one who kills the other by the end of the night. In the words of Jean Cocteau, “Enclosure bears witness with an irresistible power... It grabs us by the scruff of the neck. It throws us face to face with this jellyfish head while our courage needs to stay strong and convince.”
Screening Schedule

No physical screenings scheduled.

Direction: Armand Gatti
Script: Armand Gatti, Pierre Joffroy
Cinematography: Robert Juillard
Editing: Yvonne Martin
Sound: René Sarazin
Actors: Hans Christian Blech, Jean Negroni
Production: Clavis Films, Triglav Film
Costumes: Nada Souvan
Make Up: Jacky Bouban
Format: DCP
Color: B&W
Production Country: France, Yugoslavia
Production Year: 1961
Duration: 104'
Contact: Jean-Jacques Hocquard (La Parole errante)
Awards/Distinctions: Critics Award – Cannes Film Festival 1961 Best Director Award – Moscow Film Festival 1961 Special Mention – Mannheim Film Festival

Armand Gatti

One of the most acclaimed theater writer/directors of the 20th century, Gatti was originally a member of the informal Left Bank group of filmmakers that included Alain Resnais, Chris Marker and Agnès Varda, but remains an elusive figure for many cinephiles. He was born in 1924 in a shantytown in Monaco to Auguste Rainier an Italian anarchist from Piedmont, who escaped murder in a Chicago slaughterhouse because of his political activities and fled Benito Mussolini’s regime and to Letizia Lusona a maid. During World War II, Gatti joined a small French resistance maquis. Captured, tortured, and sentenced to a concentration camp in Hamburg where he was forced to work in a diving bell at the bottom of the Baltic Sea, he eventually escaped and joined a British Special Air Service special forces team. After the war, he worked as an award-winning journalist for many years until he traveled with Marker, published his first plays, and directed his first film, Enclosure (L'Enclos, 1961). He was awarded the French Legion of Honour in 1999, the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2004 and the Grand prix du théâtre from the Académie française in 2013. He died on April 6, 2017.

Filmography

1961 L’ enclos | The Enclosure
1963 El otro Cristóbal | The Other Christopher
1969 Der Übergang über den Ebro | The Ebro Crossing
1983 Nous étions tous des noms d'arbres | The Writing on the Wall