Pier Paolo Pasolini
40th Anniversary

November 4 - 22, 2015

On the 40th anniversary of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s (1922-1975) death, Pera Film in collaboration with the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Italian Institute of Culture in Istanbul is organizing a film program commemorating him and his work. Pasolini, a filmmaker, a poet, a novelist, a playwright, a painter, a critic and intellectual, was not only one of Italy’s most prominent figures for much of his life, he remains that, but, more importantly, he is a figure who belongs to the world.

Pier Paolo Pasolini’s ability to simultaneously embrace conflicting philosophies—he was both a Catholic and a Marxist; modern-minded, openly gay; who looked to the distant past for inspiration and comfort. What he is best known for is undoubtedly his subversive body of film work. He was a student of the written word, and among his earliest movie jobs was writing additional dialogue for Federico Fellini’s Nights of Cabiria (1957). Soon he was directing his first film, Accattone (1961), a tale of street crime whose style and content greatly influenced the debut feature of his friend Bernardo Bertolucci, La commare secca (1962), for which Pasolini also supplied the original story. The outspoken and always political Pasolini’s films became increasingly scandalous—even, to some minds, blasphemous—from the gritty reimagining of the Christ story The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964) to the bawdy medieval tales in his Trilogy of Life (1971–1974). Tragically, Pasolini was found brutally murdered weeks before the release of his final work, the grotesque, Marquis de Sade–derived Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975) provides a violent essay on Italy's Nazi-fascist past and still is one of the world’s most controversial films. Writer Ed Vulliamy, in his Guardian article meticulously remarks: “Pasolini had died, so history insists, as though in a scene from one of his films. ‘It is only at the point of death,’ Pasolini had said in 1967, ‘that our life, to that point ambiguous, undecipherable, suspended – acquires a meaning.’’’

This program’s screenings are free of admissions. Drop in, no reservations.

In collaboration

 

November 4

19:00 Accattone

November 6

19:00 Love Meetings

Love and Anger: The Sequence of the Paper Flower

21:00 The Grim Reaper

November 7

14:00 Oedipus Rex

16:00 The Hawks and the Sparrows

November 8

14:00 Mamma Roma

November 11

19:00 Accattone

November 12

19:00 The Gospel According to St. Matthew

November 13

17:00 Prophecy: Pasolini's Africa

19:00 Notes Towards an African Orestes

21:00 Oedipus Rex

November 14

14:00 The Rage of Pasolini

16:00 The Gospel According to St. Matthew

November 15

14:00 The Grim Reaper

17:00 Notes Towards an African Orestes

November 18

19:00 The Hawks and the Sparrows

November 21

12:00 Love Meetings

Love and Anger: The Sequence of the Paper Flower

14:00 The Rage of Pasolini

16:00 Prophecy: Pasolini's Africa

November 22

14:00 Mamma Roma

Accattone

Accattone

Oedipus Rex

Oedipus Rex

The Hawks and the Sparrows

The Hawks and the Sparrows

The Gospel According to St. Matthew

The Gospel According to St. Matthew

Love Meetings

Love Meetings

Mamma Roma

Mamma Roma

Love and Anger: The Sequence of the Paper Flower

Love and Anger: The Sequence of the Paper Flower

The Grim Reaper

The Grim Reaper

Notes Towards an African Orestes

Notes Towards an African Orestes

The Rage of Pasolini

The Rage of Pasolini

Prophecy: Pasolini's Africa

Prophecy: Pasolini's Africa

Program Trailer

Pier Paolo Pasolini
40th Anniversary

Pasolini, a filmmaker, a poet, a novelist, a playwright, a painter, a critic and intellectual, was not only one of Italy’s most prominent figures for much of his life, he remains that, but, more importantly, he is a figure who belongs to the world.

Turquerie

Turquerie

Having penetrated the Balkans in the fourteenth century, conquered Constantinople in the fifteenth, and reached the gates of Vienna in the sixteenth, the Ottoman Empire long struck fear into European hearts. 

Giacometti in Paris

Giacometti in Paris

The second part of exhibition illustrates Alberto Giacometti’s relations with Post-Cubist artists and the Surrealist movement between 1922 and 1935, one of the important sculptures series he created during his first years in Paris, and the critical role he played in the art scene of the period.

“My body is my sculpture” <br> Louise Bourgeois

“My body is my sculpture”
Louise Bourgeois

Pera Museum, in collaboration with Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV), is one of the main venues for this year’s 15th Istanbul Biennial from 16 September to 12 November 2017. Through the biennial, we will be sharing detailed information about the artists and the artworks.