CinemaItaliaUK, in collaboration with FILL (Festival of Italian Literature in London), will pay tribute to Pier Paolo Pasolini with his film The Canterbury Tales.

Eight of Geoffrey Chaucer’s lusty tales come to life on-screen in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s gutsy and delirious The Canterbury Tales, which was shot in England and offers a remarkably earthy re-creation of the medieval era.

From the story of a nobleman struck blind after marrying a much younger and promiscuous bride to a climactic trip to a hell populated by friars and demons (one of the most outrageously conceived and realized sequences ever committed to film), this is an endlessly imaginative work of merry blasphemy, framed by Pasolini’s portrayal of Chaucer himself.

*The screening will be followed by a "Conversation on Pier Paolo Pasolini" with film critic Serafino Murri and professor Eleonora Sammartino. See more details about them below.

Serafino Murri (Rome, 1966) graduated in Aesthetics with Emilio Garroni at the "La Sapienza" University of Rome (1990); teacher, film critic and theorist, he has published monographs on Pasolini, Kieslowski and Scorsese (Il Castoro Cinema, Lindau), he is among the authors of the Enciclopedia del Cinema Treccani, and was editor-in-chief of the magazine "Close-Up-Storie della Visione", a contributor to "Repubblica XL" (2005-2013), selector at the Mostra d'Arte Cinematografica in Venice and coordinator of the New Territories section (2002-2003). He is the author and host of cinema programs for RaiSatCinema World and RaiMovie (1999-2016). He has written and directed the feature movie Movimenti (2004), and the documentary Scandalo in sala (2014). He is a dialogist for dubbings, and for over a decade has researched digital cultures and arts: among his latest publications, Sign(s) of the Times. Pensiero visuale ed estetiche della soggettività digitale (Meltemi, 2020) e Pandemia Capitale. Postapocalittici e disintegrati (manifestolibri, 2021, with L. Clausi). He teaches film studies at, amongst others, the UNINT University of the International Studies, the Istituto Europeo di Design, the Scuola d'Arte cinematografica G. M. Volonté, Laboratorio d’Arte Cinematografica (LAC), all based in Rome.

Eleonora Sammartino teaches Film and Media at the University of Greenwich and at Imperial College London. She has also worked at King’s College London, where she gained her PhD in Film Studies in 2018, the University of Reading, and London South Bank University. Her research focuses on the relationship between feminisms, contemporary media and popular cultures, and the cultural politics of identity. She has been published in the European Journal of American Studies, The Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies, and the edited collection Musicals at the Margins (Bloomsbury Academic, 2021). She has also written for the art magazine Garageland and the Italian online magazine Sentieri Selvaggi. Eleonora has worked for film festivals both in Italy and the UK and is currently Project Manager for FILL – Festival of Italian Literature in London, with which she has collaborated since 2018.

Cast:
Josephine Chaplin, Ninetto Davoli, Hugh Griffith