The network of Italian Cultural Institutes is commemorating the 40th anniversary of the death of Pier Paolo Pasolini with a series of initiatives, some of which have already taken place and others are still to come.
Sao Paulo honoured Pasolini on 8 and 9 October with “Demasiado Pasolini” (lots of Pasolini), an event dedicated to the writer/film director held at the Mario De Andrade Library, and with the presentation of an anthology of his poetry – the first ever published in Brazil – entitled “Pier Paolo Pasolini. Poemas”, edited by Alfonso Berardinelli and promoted with the support of the Italian Cultural Institute of Sao Paulo.
In Warsaw, Luigi Attademo (guitar) and Roberto Gioffré (reader) offered a “Melologo” on a little known text by Pasolini: an essay entitled “Studies on the style of Bach”.
Pasolini the filmmaker was celebrated in Haifa in the context of the International Film Festival with the series “Pier Paolo Pasolini – 40 year after”, organised by the Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa Cinema libraries in collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institutes of Tel Aviv and Haifa.
Brussels will host various events honouring the artist from 19 to 24 November. These will include the award of the “Passa Porta Noble Prize for Literature” (created to honour all those authors who would have deserved a Nobel during their lifetimes), screenings of several of the director’s films and a conference entitled “Pasolini et les écrivains belges”.
The Italian Cultural Institute of New York will join the Kairos Italy Theater (Casa Italiana Theater Company in Residence) in presenting a celebration of the period Pasolini spent in New York and of the influence of his multifaceted personality on younger generations.
In London, a conference entitled “Language, Sign and Meaning in the Work of Pier Paolo Pasolini” was organised and conducted by Federico Faloppa (University of Reading) with the participation of Rosa Mucignat (King’s College) and Donatella Maraschin (London South Bank University). The encounter was followed by a screening of Carlo Hayman-Chaffrey’s documentary film “Pier Paolo Pasolini: a Filmmaker’s life” (1970).
Bratislava “Amore e rabbia” – films and photos to commemorate Pasolini
The film series “Amore e rabbia” (Láska a zúrivosť), starting today 3 November, is dedicated to Pier Paolo Pasolini on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of his tragic death on 2 November 1975. Bratislava’s Kino Lumiére will screen 14 feature-length films by and about Pasolini, by now acknowledged to be one of the greatest of Italian 20th century intellectuals. A fundamental figure in Italian post-war culture, Pasolini – much loved also in Slovakia – was a journalist, film director, screen writer, author, poet and playwright.
Within the same film series there will be an exposition of 27 photographs taken by Angelo Novi on the set of the film “The Gospel According to Mathew”, on loan from the archives of the Cineteca di Bologna /Archivo Pasolini.
Finally, a screening in Paris of the film “La Commare secca”, Bernardo Bertolucci’s first feature-length film, for which Pasolini wrote the screenplay, and a Pasolini film retrospective.
