The UCLA Film & Television Archive, in collaboration with Luce Cinecitta’ and the American Cinematheque, have launched “Pure and Impure: The Films of Pier Paolo Pasolini.” Hosted by the Billy Wilder Theatre in Westwood and by the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica in the months of August and September 2013, the retrospective celebrates one of the most outstanding and controversial filmmakers in post-war Europe through screenings of his films and documentaries.
In conjunction with the retrospective, the Italian Cultural Institute in Los Angeles is hosting “Pasolini’s East in Roberto Villa’s photographs.” With a collection of 100 images, the exhibition explores the experience of photographer Roberto Villa on the set of The Arabian Nights (1974) by Pier Paolo Pasolini.
“Pasolini’s East” – organized in collaboration with Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna – not only documents the director’s work in the Middle East (Yemen and Iran) but also offers one of the last portraits of a beautiful land that was about to become an extended war zone.
Leitmotif of the photos is Pasolini’s respect for the local culture, as well as the photographer’s empathy with those landscapes and people. These photographs seem to send a message of urgency for a dialogue between East and West, a dialogue that Pasolini had already foreseen as an important issue of our time.
Villa appeared in person last Friday evening for the opening of “Pasolini’s East” at the Italian Cultural Institute, along with exhibition curator Rosalba Trebian.
Media Sponsor of the event was Cinema Without Borders and food was provided by Carnival Restaurant, an specialist in Middle Eastern cuisine.