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HOMMAGE PASOLINI: THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW
Dates
16.06 / Monday, 20:00
Dates
16.06 / Monday, 20:00
Venue
Duration
137 min.
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Language
Film presented in original soundtrack with Polish and English subtitles
Film retrospective at the Kino Pałacowe, June 16-22, 2025
The 2nd of November 2025 will mark 50 years since the tragic death of Pier Paolo Pasolini, the Italian filmmaker considered one of the most important „director-poets” in the history of cinema. Together with the Malta Festival, we invite you to a unique retrospective of five of Pasolini’s most important films presented in digitally restored versions. They are arranged in an artistic quintet which demonstrates the full range of talent and interests of the controversial director, poet, essayist, screenwriter and actor.
This is Pasolini fascinated by religion, Marxism and the possibility of revolution (The Gospel According to St. Matthew, 1964); Pasolini adapting world literature to tell a story of human vitality, sexuality and the desire for pleasure (Trilogy of Life, 1971-1974); and Pasolini as the creator of perhaps the most uncompromising and iconoclastic analysis of fascism and enslavement (Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, 1975).
From his black-and-white, ascetic retelling of the life of Jesus (enriched with music by Bach, Prokofiev and American blues) to his radical vision of hell on earth in Salò, HOMMAGE: PASOLINI emphasizes the extremes that make Pasolini so enduringly fascinating and intriguing for generations of viewers. At the heart of the retrospective is the Trilogy of Life, consisting of The Decameron (1971), The Canterbury Tales (1972) and Arabian Nights (1974). Very rarely shown on Polish screens, these films are steeped in medieval literature and constitute a colorful, ludic and sensual celebration of human carnality and the need for love, with music by Ennio Morricone and production design by Dante Ferretti (The Age of Innocence, Casino, Gangs of New York).
Pasolini’s films are intriguing classics for today’s troubled times: bursting with energy, they inspire and surprise, and also shock with their directness and aesthetic daring.
The retospective’s special guests will be the highly acclaimed Oscar-winning British actress Tilda Swinton, and Olivier Saillard, one of fashion’s premier historians and curators, who will come to Poznan with their original performance EMBODYING PASOLINI. HOMMAGE: PASOLINI will thus become an extension of the context presented by the artists in the performance, and the kind of tribute that Pier Paolo Pasolini deserves.
Curators: Piotr Szczyszyk, Sebastian Smoliński
The Gospel According to St. Matthew, Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1964
One of the greatest and most original biblical epics in film history. Riding the wave of the spiritual renewal of the Catholic Church and the Second Vatican Council, Pasolini searches for the seeds of social radicalism in the Gospel. Was Jesus the first communist? Was Christianity the first praise of communal life? This ascetic and majestic black-and-white film does not provide straightforward answers to these questions but constitutes an intense journey to the past: to the ancient world of the first monotheistic religions and to a pre-modern epoch. According to Pasolini, such an interpretation of Christ’s life had to be shot in Italy, since after journeying through Palestine and Israel, the director deemed those lands to have lost their archaic purity. The Gospel According to St. Matthew is told through imagery and Scripture, but also through music. The eclectically curated compositions – from Bach and Mozart to Russian music and the blues – enrichens the expressive force of this revolutionary, but at the same time traditional, biographical epic. [Sebastian Smoliński]
PROGRAM OF THE RETROSPECTIVE:
16.06, 8 PM: The Gospel According to St. Matthew, dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini, France, Italy 1964, 137′ | introduction: Piotr Szczyszyk | Cinema Hall 1
17.06, 8 PM: The Decameron, dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini, Italy, France, RFN 1971, 111′ | introduction: Piotr Szczyszyk | Cinema Hall 1
20.06, 6:30 PM: The Canterbury Tales, dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini, France, Italy 1972, 111′ | introduction: Sebastian Smolinski | Cinema Hall 1
21.06, 6 PM: Arabian Nights, dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini, France, Italy 1974, 130′ | introduction: Sebastian Smolinski | Cinema Hall 1
22.06, 4 PM: Meeting with Tilda Swinton Olivier Saillard moderated by Sebastian Smoliński + screening of the film Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini, France, Italy 1975, 117′ | The Grand Hall
All films presented in original soundtrack with Polish and English subtitles.
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