The title of this fascinating feature-length documentary, made for the film's Criterion Collection release, is taken from Pauline Kael's comment in her review of the film that director Gillo Pontecorvo was "the most dangerous type of Marxist, a Marxist poet." . It features interviews with Pontecorvo, cinematographer Marcello Gatti, composer Ennio Morricone, Yacef Saadi, who plays himself in the film and whose memoir, Memories of the Battle of Algiers, written in prison and published in 1962, were the basis on which Pontecorvo built his film.

Pontecorvo outlines his filmmaking philosophy rooted in "the dictatorship of truth," and his views on this film's casting decisions. Pontecorvo and his co-writer Franco Solinas resisted almost all attempts by the film's producers to have them cast professional actors in key roles (French actor Jean Martin as Colonel Mathieu was the exception), continuing instead to "wild casting" of non-professional actors. whose faces matched the idea they had in mind for each character. An approach that will pay off, particularly with regard to the casting of Brahim Hadjadj in the role of Ali La Pointe and Mohamed Ben Kassen in the role of Petit Omar, surely one of the most adult faces ever seen on a child actor.