Giulio Petroni

Giulio Petroni (21 September 1917 – 31 January 2010) was an Italian director, writer, and screenwriter, best known for his spaghetti Westerns Death Rides a Horse (1967), with Lee Van Cleef in one of his first starring roles, A Sky Full of Stars for a Roof (1968), with Giuliano Gemma, and Tepepa (1969), with Orson Welles and Tomas Milian.

Giulio Petroni was born in Rome on 21 September 1917. After graduating in literature, Giulio Petroni began working as a director making a short film for the INCOM newsreel, entitled Goethe in Rome. He also worked as a columnist for various newspapers.

After the Second World War - Petroni had participated as a partisan supporter of the communists and anti-fascists - he went to Ceylon, where he headed the local film department and made documentaries; on his return he continued this with a series of political documentaries. Political topics can also be discovered in his feature films - the revolutionary Western Tepepa in particular offers a wealth of material for political analysis.