Movies

SYNOPSIS

One day, one life. Rome, the night of November 2nd 1975, the great Italian poet and filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini is murdered. Pasolini is the symbol of an art that’s fighting against power. His writings are scandalous, his films are persecuted by the censors, many people love him and many hate him. The day of his death, Pasolini spends his last hours with his beloved mother and later on, with his dearest friends, before finally going out into the night in his Alfa Romeo in search of adventure in the Eternal City. At dawn, Pasolini is found dead on a beach in Ostia on the outskirts of the city. In a film, a blend of reality and imagination, Abel Ferrara reconstructs the last day in the life of this great poet with collaborator Willem Dafoe as Pier Paolo Pasolini.

Abel Ferrara

Born Jul 19, 1951 in New York. American independent filmmaker Abel Ferrara is a chronicler of New York at its grittiest. Born in the Bronx of Italian and Irish descent, he often uses a dangerous but fertile Lower East Side as a setting for his films. Ferrara first drew a cult audience with exploitation movies such as The Driller Killer (1979) and Ms. 45 (1981). Later King of New York (NYFF 1990) and Bad Lieutenant (1992) won him wider critical acclaim. His films frequently feature visionary antiheroes struggling on the margins of metropolitan society, and often show influences of his Catholic upbringing. After the September 11 attacks Ferrara moved to Rome for a few years while continuing making films about his hometown, but his films have gone largely unseen in the U.S. for more than a decade. Dennis Lim says of him in The New York Times, “With an eye for scuzzy local color and a taste for sin and salvation, he was the unofficial poet laureate of pre-Giuliani New York.”

Filmography

2014 Pasolini
2014 Welcome to New York
2011 4:44 - Last Day on Earth
2009 Mulbery St.
 Napoli Napoli Napoli
2008 Chelsea on the Rocks
2007 Go Go Tales
2005 Mary
2001 'R Xmas
1998 New Rose Hotel
1997 Blackout, The
1996 Funeral, The
1995 Addiction, The
1993 Dangerous Game
 Body Snatchers
1992 Bad Lieutenant
1990 King of New York
1989 Cat Chaser
1987 China Girl
1984 Fear City
1981 Driller Killer, The
 Angel of Vengance

Festivals
2014              Venice, Toronto, San Sebastián, New York, Busan, London, Mar Del Plata


A blessed few improve with age. The American director defies good taste, defies good sense, and flirts with disaster on a regular basis. His new film, Pasolini, stands as one of his best.
Xan Brooks, Guardian