After having been a point of cohesion for the various trends in independent Italian cinema, after having contributed, and more than just a little, to the awareness of “New American Cinema”, Leonardi moved with lucidity, courage and anger towards a militant commitment, where the most dramatic friction points of the “internal fronts” of poverty, injustice and social marginalization are found: Roman shantytowns of immigrants from the South, unhealthy blue-collar neighborhoods in the industrial outskirts, Sardinia of the shepherds, the South of an ancient peasant world with no hope.

Sirio Luginbühl