Winner of three Italian Academy Awards, Enzo Monteleone’s incredibly powerful film recounts one of the epic battles of WWII, in which the Italian army, fighting alongside the Germans, sought to drive the Allied forces from North Africa. Dealing with enemy ground and air attacks on one hand, extreme daytime heat and nighttime cold on the other, and their commanders’ muddled inability to command, the troops were basically abandoned and forced to make do as best as they could. Focusing on the intimate, emotional lives of these soldiers, El Alamein forcefully conveys the message that war—from any time and in any place—is truly hell.