New York is celebrating the life and work of Italian cultural legend Pier Paolo Pasolini with a three-week calendar of plays, workshops, exhibits and screenings.
A variety of prestigious New York locations is paying tribute to the controversial director and writer, who was murdered near Rome in 1975.
The tribute kicks off on Tuesday at the Italian Cultural Institute with the premiere of a documentary entitled Pasolini's Voice. Other documentaries will follow each Tuesday until December 18.
A photography exhibit will display stills from the sets of two of his films, Mamma Roma and Theorem (1968).
On Wednesday the Italian Department at New York University will host a round-table conference, to be attended by academics as well as singer-songwriter Patti Smith, a passionate and vocal admirer of Pasolini's work.
The Italian Cultural Institute is also focusing on Pasolini's literary achievements.
Several readings, exhibitions and conferences are scheduled for coming weeks, starting with an event hosted by Pasolini's niece Graziella Chiarcossi.
Also speaking at the institute will be Italian author and scriptwriter Vincenzo Cerami, a Pasolini protege', who worked with the director on two of his films, The Assembly of Love (1964) and The Hawks and the Sparrows (1966).
In another event on Tuesday, the Public Theatre is staging a concert exploring a lesser-known side of Pasolini, his forays into song-writing. Unpublished drafts of songs have been set to music and will be performed by Italian actors Aisha Cerami and Nuccio Siano.
La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club is hosting a performance entitled Trash inspired by Pasolini's writings, while the Walter Reade Theatre will stage a combination of spoken word and music on December 4, with piano and percussion accompanying sections from the script of Accattone (1961), the director's first film.
The Lincoln Centre is screening a series of Pasolini movies under the title: ''Heretical Epiphanies: the Cinematic Pilgrimages of Pier Paolo Pasolini''.
The mini-fest opens Wednesday with his second film, Mamma Roma, which portrays a middle-aged prostitute in Rome played by Anna Magnani.
Original posters and flyers advertising Pasolini's films will be on show at the Frieda and Roy Furman Gallery until December 2.
Pasolini is a renowned figure in Italy but is little known in the US, and this is the first major New York event devoted to his work in 20 years.
Born in Bologna in 1922, he courted controversy throughout his career.
Accattone, with its violent depiction of the life of a male pimp in the slums of Rome, caused an instant sensation, as did his next movie, Mamma Roma.
But another of his early films, the black-and-white 1964 Il Vangelo Second Matteo (The Gospel According to St. Matthew) was made with the Catholic Church's support and is hailed by many critics as the best cinematic adaptation of the life of Jesus.
Pasolini's later movies were sex-laden adaptations of classics such as Il Decamerone (The Decameron, 1971), I Racconti di Canterbury (The Canterbury Tales, 1972) and Il Fiore delle Mille e una Notte (Arabian Nights, 1974).
The director also wrote critically acclaimed novels and poetry.
His first book Ragazzi di Vita, published in 1955, resulted in obscenity charges being brought against him and was denounced by the Vatican and the Italian Communist Party, of which he was a member.
Attempts to prosecute Pasolini for the book failed and it ended up as a finalist for the Strega Prize, Italy's leading literary award.
The circumstances surrounding Pasolini's death remain a mystery.
His battered body was discovered on waste ground outside the seaside town of Ostia near Rome in November 1975. He had been brutally beaten and then run over.
Pino Pelosi, a rent-boy at the time, was caught by police at the wheel of Pasolini's blood-smeared car and immediately confessed to murdering the poet.
But in 2005, Pelosi retracted his confession, saying Pasolini was beaten to death by a group of thugs who wanted to ''teach him a lesson''.
Pelosi, now in his late 40s and out of jail, said he had decided to ''tell the truth'' because his parents were no longer alive and therefore could not be the victims of retaliation by those who actually killed the director.
Magistrates subsequently reopened their files on the murder but shelved the case in November 2005 saying they had found no new evidence.
Pasolini's friends, colleagues and admirers have never accepted the theory that Pelosi acted alone. Many are adamant that he was murdered for the radically ''dangerous'' political views he expressed in his novels, books and newspaper editorials.
