Vespucci Tokyo Tour - an event on Pasolini

(ANSA) - ROME, AUG 28 - The screening of a documentary and a debate were organized in Tokyo, during the Japanese stopover of the Amerigo Vespucci vessel's world tour, on Pier Paolo Pasolini in order to try to analyse the various aspects of the life and work of one of Italy's most controversial and beloved intellectuals of the 20th century.
    "Having a piece of our mobile Italy in this country and being able to talk about such an important author has great value", Laura Imai Messina, a writer based in Tokyo, told ANSA.
    "We spoke about the theme of Elsewhere - which is present in Pasolini's literature.
    "An 'elsewhere' that begins with going very far, exactly like a sailing ship discovering new lands.
    "Also a gaze that learns to welcome new realities - and then returns home to see the closest reality, like Italy's, with different eyes", noted the author.
    After becoming a cult figure in Japan for university students in the 1970s, Pasolini is now less known to younger generations - something which has prompted the visibility campaign on the universal value of the artist.
    "Very often, the Italian debate on Pasolini has been reduced to clashes between parties with a clichéd vision of his figure", said playwright Gian Maria Cervo, who took part in the public conversation.
    "Instead, a new generation of artists today wants to rediscover Pasolini's complexity, I would dare to say Pasolini's verticality - all the layers of this figure that is so important for our culture, for our 1900s, who also had a prophetic vision of the 21st century", concluded Cervo. (ANSA).