The Year of the Cannibals
The Year of the Cannibals is a 1969 Italian drama film directed by Liliana Cavani and starring Britt Ekland, Pierre Clémenti, and Tomas Milian. It is a modernized retelling of the Greek tragedy Antigone, set in contemporary Milan and drawing upon socio-political themes and imagery of the time, including the protests of 1968, the counter-cultural movement, and the Years of Lead.
Plot
The streets of the city are littered with corpses. It is the result of the repression of a protest by the police. A decree of law prohibits the removal of the bodies, under penalty of death, by supreme order of the totalitarian regime. People pass the macabre scene with indifference. Only Antigone wants to bury her brother, but neither her family, nor her fiancé - who is the son of the prime minister - will help her. She finds help from Tiresias, a mysterious stranger who speaks an unknown language. The two dedicate themselves to burying the dead and for this they are arrested and tortured; at first they manage to escape but then they are killed by the police. However, they become a symbol for many young people who, from that moment, begin to collect the corpses of the rebels to bury them.Release
The film premiered on 5 September 1969 at the 30th Venice International Film Festival, in the Informativa sidebar. It was later screened in the Directors' Fortnight section of the 1970 Cannes Film Festival.A restored version of the film was released on DVD and Blu-ray by Kino Lorber in 2014.