Italian poet and filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini was BOTD in 1922. Born in Bologna and raised in Friuli, he began writing poetry from early childhood. He studied at the University of Bologna, self-publishing his first poetry collection when he was 18. After World War Two, he moved to Rome, living in poverty as an avowed Marxist and supporting himself by teaching. His first novel Ragazzi di vita, prompted obscenity charges following its publication in 1955. He worked with filmmaker Federico Fellini, providing dialogue for La dolce vita and co-wrote the film Long Night in 1943. His first film as writer-director, Accattone, scandalised 1960s audiences with its unvarnished portrait of working-class Rome. His next film Mamma Roma starred Anna Magnani as a former prostitute trying to elevate her son to the middle classes. He won international acclaim for The Gospel According to St Matthew, a gritty but reverent account of the life of Jesus Christ, which won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival. His 1968 film Teorema (Theorum) starred Terence Stamp as a charismatic stranger who infiltrates and has sex with all the members of a bourgeois Milanese family. In the 1970s, he made successful adaptations of The Decameron, The Canterbury Tales and Arabian Nights (referred to as the Trilogy of Life), exploring the sacredness of human sexuality and the hypocrisy of organised religion. He often cast himself in his films, playing a painter in The Decameron and Geoffrey Chaucer in The Canterbury Tales. His homosexuality frequently put him at odds with the police, the Catholic Church and old-school Leftists. He had a long-term relationship with Ninetto Davoli, whom he met when Davoli was just 15, casting him in many of his films. Pasolini was brutally murdered in 1975, aged 53. A 17 year-old boy confessed to his murder, retracting his confession decades later. His final film, an adaptation of the Marquis de Sade’s novel Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, was released three weeks after his death. Relocating the action to the Fascist Republic of Salò in Italy during the last months of World War Two, it shocked audiences with its graphic depictions of sexual violence and torture, including an infamous banquet scene where teenaged prisoners are forced to eat faeces. The film was banned in several countries and remains controversial, praised as a masterly critique of Fascism and condemned as obscene. Now considered a giant of 20th century cinema, Pasolini’s work has influenced filmmakers including Bernardo Bertolucci, Todd Haynes and Bruce LaBruce and philosophers Michel Foucault and Roland Barthes. Theories continue to circulate about his death, ranging from his being assassinated by Fascist or Mafia gangs to his “delegating” his own suicide during a sado-masochistic sex ritual. He was portrayed by Willem Dafoe in the 2014 biopic Pasolini.