Oil will set you free?

This film is based on a research project analysing the role of the oil industry in the Algerian decolonization process, with a particular focus on the Italian company ENI and the French companies CFP and SN REPAL. ENI’s first CEO, Enrico Mattei, a partisan and a founding father of the Italian Republic, proposed a cooperation project between the governments of Algeria, Italy and France to cut out the Anglo-American private companies from the exploitation of the Algerian oil. The plan was abandoned after years of negotiations but it could have created a European energy network which included North Africa. This short documentary is made with archive footage from the researched period, in order to convey the social and cultural background in which this African-European project was conceived.