The screening of a documentary and debate on Pier Paolo Pasolini took place in Tokyo during the Japanese leg of the Amerigo Vespucci world tour. They attempted to recount the various aspects of the life and work of one of the most controversial and beloved intellectuals of 20th century Italy.
"Having a piece of our mobile Italy in this country and being able to talk about such an important author is of great value," Laura Imai Messina, a writer living in Tokyo, told ANSA. 'We talked about the theme of Elsewhere - which is present in Pasolini's literature. An 'Elsewhere' that starts by going very far away, exactly like a sailing ship that goes to discover new lands. Also a gaze that then acquires in welcoming new realities. And which then returns home to see the closest reality, like the Italian one, with different eyes'.
After being a cult object in Japan for university students in the 1970s, Pasolini is now less well known among the younger generations, hence the campaign for visibility on the universal value of the artist. 'Very often even the Italian debate on Pasolini has been reduced to clashes between parties that had a clichéd view of the figure of the character,' says playwright Gian Maria Cervo present at the public conversation. "And instead today there is a whole new generation of artists who want to restore the complexity of Pasolini, I dare say the verticality of Pasolini. All the layers of this figure so important for our culture, for our 20th century, who also had prophetic visions of the 21st century'.
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