Seize the time was shot in the United States following the activities of the Black Panther Party. Antonello Branca's film blends fiction and documentary. One only professional actor, Norman Jacobs, goes through simbolic pop visions of american imperialism set against real images like police combings, students marches, drills, interviews. it is an America where black people and above all Pathers are killed and repressed according to a precise plan. The film should have been screened at the Venice Film Festival but Branca prefered to withdraw it due to the unacceptable conditions set by the festival direction.

Antonello Branca, was born in Rome in 1935. At 24-year-old he was a photographer in Kenya and then correspondent fon Agenzia Italia in London. Here he made his first documentary, Un italiano guarda Londra (1961), with the photographer Lorenzo Capellini. This film started his collaboration with Rai. In 1966 Branca and his friend Raffaele De Luca founded the Filmaker Research Group. They travelled a lot through the United States making numerous documentaries on American society.