Carmelo Bene

Carmelo Pompilio Realino Antonio Bene, known as Carmelo Bene (1 September 1937 – 16 March 2002) was an Italian actor, poet, film director and screenwriter. He was one of the greatest figures in Italian avant-garde culture.

Also famous for his eccentric behaviour and for mocking the Italian theatre tradition, he took to the extreme the concept of Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty. His first work was the italian version of Caligula, requested to his friend Albert Camus in 1959. Some of his dramatic works were interrupted by police for his supposed blasphemous and outrageous contents, as his play Cristo '63 (Christ '63).

He was also a filmaker, but claimed to have little sympathy for almost all the film-making made after Buster Keaton and Sergei Eisenstein, all his movies were higly criticized by the time of their release for their unusual and cryptic mise-en-scène but gained cult following in the following years.

He often collaborated with french philosopher Gilles Deleuze, writer Pierre Klossowski, italian critic Enrico Ghezzi and many more.