1. Franco Prosperi & Gaultiero Jacopetti
Yes, these two men come as partners in crime. They are the Godfathers of Mondo and have arguably made the most influential shockumentaries. Prosperi and Jacopetti set the blue print for the Mondo film genre with Mondo Cane (It's a Dog's World) which took the viewer on a lovely trip around the world to gawk at what those pesky foreigners get up to. It was scored by Riz Ortolani (whose song 'More' from the film was in the running for an Oscar) and it spawned a sequel in Mondo Cane 2 using roughly the same template as the original - but incorporating a lot more staged footage. Prosperi and Jacopetti decided to visit the dark continent of Africa for their next Mondo movie project entitled Africa Addio (Farewell Africa). Now this is a very important historical document of the decolonisation of Africa, the instability Africa fell into after decolonisation and the filming of massacres that would have been swept under the carpet had Prosperi and Jacopetti not captured them. Africa Addio has amazingly strong viewing power to affect your emotions. A highly racist narrator heightens the power of all that goes on in the film - rampant animal slaughter, shootings and killings, acts of genocide. The basic message is that Africa is a continent full of savages who can't run their own affairs. They even hold up the apartheid state of South Africa as an ideal situation to the troubles in Africa at that time. As I said, it is an important historical document and access to it is limited because it is so incendiary. Prosperi and Jacopetti were accused of staging executions and narrowly beat a murder rap. The pair were stung by accusations of racism and to show they were not racist, they made another Mondo Movie called Addio Zio Tom (Farewell Uncle Tom). This film was even more insulting and racist than its predecessor. Prosperi and Jacopetti recreated the conditions and hardships African Americans faced during the slavery era but it is done in such a sensationalised and unwholesome way, it comes off as being racist. It really is jaw-dropping stuff. For giving the world Africa Addio and Addio Zio Tom, Prosperi and Jacopetti can be considered evil directors. Jacopetti was quite the Playboy when he was younger and spent time in jail in Hong Kong for abducting two underaged Chinese girls. Their films are compulsive viewing but utter muck.