Bruno Pontecorvo film debuts this month

"Maksimovic. The Story of Bruno Pontecorvo" made its debut in Rome on 11 September at an international conference that hosted the President of Italy, Giorgio Napolitano. ICTP, together with the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) and the National Institute of Nuclear Physics, helped fund the film, which looks at one of the most fascinating mysteries related to the atomic era.

On 1 September 1950, at the dawn of the Cold War, the italian physicist Bruno Pontecorvo and his family mysteriously disappeared. This created a real political earthquake in Europe and the USA: Pontecorvo was in fact a scientist known around the world for his expertise in a very delicate area, that of nuclear research. The story of his disappearance was a fascinating mystery, especially when it became known that he had crossed the Iron Curtain and moved to the Soviet Union.

Bruno Pontecorvo's unique life was strongly interlaced with 20th century history and with the development of particle physics. With his exceptional theoretical intuitions, which went hand in hand with his brilliant qualities as an experimental physicist, Bruno Pontecorvo is the scientist that, more than anyone else, has entered the secrets of the most elusive and enigmatic particle of our universe, the neutrino.

The documentary, which was directed by Diego Cenetiempo of Trieste-based Pilgrim Film Productions and written by SISSA scientist Giuseppe Mussardo, will be presented in Pisa on September 18 and is also scheduled to show in Milano, Firenze, Amsterdam, Fiume and Trieste before the end of October. For more details, visit the documentary website.

ICTP has funded past Pilgrim Film Productions, including "Abdus Salam, The Dream of Symmetry" released in 2011.