Appunti per un film sull'India

Last updated

Appunti per un film sull'India
Directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini
Written byPier Paolo Pasolini
Sergio Citti
Produced byGianni Barcelloni
CinematographyRoberto Nappa
Federico Zanni
Edited byJenner Menghi
Music byEnnio Morricone
Release date
  • 18 August 1968 (1968-08-18)(Venice Film Festival)
CountryItaly
LanguageItalian

Appunti per un film sull'India (English: Notes for a Film on India) is a 1968 short documentary film by Pier Paolo Pasolini where he visits India to do a recce for his proposed film with India as its background about a king who gives up his body to feed a starving tiger. [1] [2]

The film was shot around post-independent India when it was facing grave challenges of poverty, population and caste system. Pasolini narrates the challenges of India and its charms amidst all the problems the country faces. The 33-minute-long documentary is composed of short interviews from random people about their opinions on matters such as family planning. The documentary also shows short interviews of journalists and one politician about the challenges India faces in modernizing itself without becoming westernized or losing the Indian identity in the process.

The film opens and ends with a shot of a Sikh soldier, who, Pasolini identifies, in his commentary, as the one who would play the role of Maharaja in his film. Among others Pasolini interviewed for his film the former Maharaja of Bhavanagar and his wife and well-known Urdu story writer and filmmaker Rajinder Singh Bedi.

The documentary was shot in many places including New Delhi, Jaipur, Rishikesh and Varanasi etc.[ citation needed ]

Related Research Articles

<i>Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom</i> 1975 Italian horror film by Pier Paolo Pasolini

Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, billed on-screen as Pasolini's 120 Days of Sodom on English-language prints and commonly referred to as simply Salò, is a 1975 political art horror film directed and co-written by Pier Paolo Pasolini. The film is a loose adaptation of the 1785 novel The 120 Days of Sodom by Marquis de Sade, updating the story's setting to the World War II era. It was Pasolini's final film, released three weeks after his murder.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Luchino Visconti</span> Italian theatre, opera and cinema director

Luchino Visconti di Modrone, Count of Lonate Pozzolo was an Italian filmmaker, theatre and opera director, and screenwriter. He was one of the fathers of cinematic neorealism, but later moved towards luxurious, sweeping epics dealing with themes of beauty, decadence, death, and European history, especially the decay of the nobility and the bourgeoisie. Critic Jonathan Jones wrote that “no one did as much to shape Italian cinema as Luchino Visconti.”

<i>The Gospel According to St. Matthew</i> (film) 1964 film about Jesus Christ, directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini

The Gospel According to St. Matthew is a 1964 epic biblical drama film in the Italian neorealist style, written and directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini. It is a cinematic rendition of the story of Jesus according to the Gospel of Matthew, from the Nativity through the Resurrection.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pier Paolo Pasolini</span> Italian writer, filmmaker, poet, and intellectual (1922–1975)

Pier Paolo Pasolini was an Italian poet, film director, writer, actor and playwright. He is considered one of the defining public intellectuals in 20th-century Italian history, influential both as an artist and a political figure. He is known for directing the films from Trilogy of Life and Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom.

<i>Love Meetings</i> 1964 Italian film

Love Meetings is a 1964 feature-length documentary, which was shot by Italian writer and director Pier Paolo Pasolini, who also acts as the interviewer, appearing in many of the film's scenes. It was premiered in Locarno Film Festival on 26 July 1964. In 2008, the film was included on the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage’s 100 Italian films to be saved, a list of 100 films that "have changed the collective memory of the country between 1942 and 1978."

<i>Teorema</i> 1968 film by Pier Paolo Pasolini

Teorema, known as Theorem in the United Kingdom, is a 1968 Italian surrealist psychological drama film written and directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini and starring Silvana Mangano, Terence Stamp and Massimo Girotti, with Anne Wiazemsky, Laura Betti, Andrés José Cruz Soublette, Alfonso Gatto and Carlo De Mejo. Pasolini's sixth film, it was the first time he worked primarily with professional actors. In this film, an upper-class Milanese family is introduced to, and then abandoned by, an otherworldly man with a mysterious divine force. Themes include the timelessness of divinity and the spiritual corruption of the bourgeoisie.

<i>Pigsty</i> (film) 1969 Italian film

Pigsty is a 1969 Italian film written and directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini starring Jean-Pierre Léaud, Marco Ferreri, Ugo Tognazzi, Pierre Clémenti, Alberto Lionello, Franco Citti and Anne Wiazemsky.

<i>Medea</i> (1969 film) 1969 Italian film

Medea is a 1969 Italian film written and directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini, based on the ancient myth of Medea. The film stars opera singer Maria Callas in her only film role and is largely a faithful portrayal of the myth of Jason and the Argonauts and the events of Euripides' play Medea.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Franco Citti</span> Italian actor (1935–2016)

Franco Citti was an Italian actor, best known as one of the close collaborators of director Pier Paolo Pasolini. He came to fame for playing the title role in Pasolini's film Accattone, which brought him a BAFTA Award nomination for Best Foreign Actor. He subsequently starred in six of Pasolini's films, as well as 60 other film and television roles. His brother was the director and screenwriter Sergio Citti.

Franco Merli is an Italian actor, who is best known for his role in Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ninetto Davoli</span> Italian actor (born 1948)

Giovanni "Ninetto" Davoli is an Italian actor who appeared in several of Pier Paolo Pasolini's films.

<i>Oedipus Rex</i> (1967 film) 1967 Italian film

Oedipus Rex is a 1967 Italian film directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini. Pasolini adapted the screenplay from the Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex written by Sophocles in 428 BC. The film was mainly shot in Morocco. It was presented in competition at the 28th Venice International Film Festival. It was Pasolini's first feature-length color film, but followed his use of color in "The Earth Seen from the Moon" episode in the portmanteau film The Witches (1967).

<i>Notes Towards an African Orestes</i> 1970 Italian film

Notes Towards an African Orestes is a 1970 Italian film by director Pier Paolo Pasolini about Pasolini's preparations for making a film version of the Oresteia set in Africa.

<i>Requiescant</i> 1967 film

Requiescant is a 1967 Spaghetti Western film directed by Carlo Lizzani and starring Lou Castel, Mark Damon, Barbara Frey and Pier Paolo Pasolini, in one of his few acting roles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nino Baragli</span> Italian film editor

Nino Baragli was an Italian film editor with more than 200 film credits. Among his films in English, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) and Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), both directed by Sergio Leone, are perhaps the best known.

Adriano Bolzoni was an Italian journalist, writer and film director.

<i>Who Killed Pasolini?</i> 1995 Italian film

Pasolini, un delitto italiano, internationally released as Who Killed Pasolini?, is a 1995 Italian crime-drama film co-written and directed by Marco Tullio Giordana. It was released on 3 July 1996. It depicts the trial against Pino Pelosi, who was charged with the murder of artist and filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini.

A list of books and essays about Pier Paolo Pasolini:

This is a list of Italian television related events from 1968.

<i>12 dicembre</i> 1972 Italian film

12 dicembre, also known as Dodici dicembre, is a 1972 documentary film directed by Giovanni Bonfanti and Pier Paolo Pasolini (uncredited).

References

  1. Maurizio Sanzio Viano (1993). A certain realism: making use of Pasolini's film theory and practice (illustrated ed.). University of California Press. p.  194. ISBN   978-0-520-07855-0.
  2. Piero Spila (1999). Pier Paolo Pasolini. Gremese Editore. p. 77. ISBN   978-88-7742-195-1.