Licking their lips and gnashing their half-decayed teeth, the affluent Duke, Magistrate, President, and Bishop who rule the fascist Republic of Salò find excitement in others’ pain. In this debauched republic, nine boys and nine girls are kidnapped and forced to participate in a feast of sodomy, coprophagy, and sadism – for the next 120 days, they will experience Dante’s hellish circles of madness, excrement, and blood. The depravity of power will be exposed in the face of absolute evil.

One of the most scandalous films in the history of cinema, even eclipsing its literary source, a novel by Marquis de Sade from 1785, in its cruelty. The fact that the film was made is still linked to the circumstances of director and writer Pier Paolo Pasolini’s death on 2 November 1975. His communist views, nonconformism, and harsh denunciation of Italy’s fascist legacy and corruption were explosive: the director was a thorn in the side of the Sicilian mafia, the Christian, right-wing and socialist parties, the Vatican, and many others. “The intellectual must continue to stick to the duty that has been assigned to him”, wrote Pasolini, believing that the artist must “re-story the truth”. This is his version.