The Lion of the Desert (1981) is a movie of the Syrian-American filmmaker Mustafà Akkad, which tells the Libyan story of the anti-colonialist resistant (teacher-turned-warrior) Omar el-Muktar, from the Arab point of view. He was the leader of the resistance movement against the Italian military occupation of Libya for more than twenty years.

From the beginning of the XX century Italian colonialist authorities, from the liberal to the fascist one, have exterminated thousands of people living in the Libyan territory but the most brutal massacres have been done during the General Rodolfo Graziani administration, who in 1931 captured el-Muktar at the old age of 70 and executed him by hanging in front of his followers in a public place.

The movie was censured in Italy for 30 years circa. I therefore decided to make these issues visible by giving the possibility to the public to watch the movie and eventually bring it at home.