Introduction In Underground Cinema Today (1974), experimental and independent filmmaker Sirio Luginbühl stated that Gianfranco Brebbia ‘used his camera as if it was a machine-gun that scratches, burns, erodes the film to incandescence and a multitude of explosions of magnificent force and energy, like only a gentle and civilized man can when crying out to the entire world his desperate wish for a revolution’.

This encapsulates Brebbia's persona; a creative energy and an independent intellectual drive to find innovative ways of deploying media, were the features of a strong personality which shaped his vision as an artist in a highly idiosyncratic style. His films – between 1962 and 1973 he made 109 experimental films in 8mm and H8 – are the result of what one could term as an ‘alchemical fusion’ between polished analysis and an instinctive, creative approach to materials and techniques testing the boundaries of film as an expressive medium.

Especially relevant to the study of Brebbia's films are the Historical avant-garde, and the post-WWII film avant-garde with the Cooperativa del Cinema Indipendente (Co-operative of Independent Cinema) and the filmmakers of the New American Cinema.

In Cinema sperimentale e mezzi di massa in Italia (Experimental Cinema and the Mass Media in Italy), film historian Adriano Aprà argued that Italian experimental cinema had no history and no critical context. He wrote:

For this reason, the task of this chapter is to explore Brebbia's artistic vision in an attempt to provide some historical and critical material that is relevant to bridge a cultural gap in the history of Italian experimental and independent cinema.