The director highlighted in this year’s IN KINO VERITAS programme, Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922–1975), moved to Rome at the age of 27 together with his mother. He later wrote in one of his best-known Roman poems that they arrived in the city as “poor as a cat in the Coliseum”.

In Rome, Pasolini saw the face of post-war Italy, which he described in vivid detail in his novel Ragazzi di vita. The much-criticised and censored book is very direct and biting in its style, but at the same time portrays the city poignantly and poetically through the eyes of Richetto – the book’s anti-hero who eventually ends up on the streets. The screen adaptation of this novel from 1961 is the first full-length film that Pasolini directed.

Translator of the book – Līva Trektere.