Terence Stamp stars as an enigmatic young man who suddenly appears in the palatial estate of a Milanese industrialist. Slowly, each of the inhabitants of the household—among them European cinema icons Silvana Mangano and Anne Wiazemsky—become obsessed with their guest. In the process, he also manages to awaken their consciousness to realities beyond their cloistered existence. Mysterious and provocative, Teorema is a stunning blend of the sacred and profane.   

Pasolini’s mysterious film Porcile intercuts two separate, seemingly unrelated stories into a singular cinematic voyage. On an otherworldly, wind-swept desert, a desperate wanderer (underground cinema icon Pierre Clémenti) turns to cannibalism to survive. While in present-day Europe, a pair of French New Wave legends—Jean-Pierre Léaud and Anne Wiazemsky—play disenchanted lovers ensconced on the baronial villa of Léaud’s ex-Nazi industrialist father.   

As a postscript we will also screen La sequenza del fiore di carta, Pasolini’s contribution to the omnibus film Amore e rabbia, which finds Pasolini regular Ninetto Davoli walking the bustling via Nazionale in Rome, carefree as can be, as the weight of history slowly overcomes him. 

Teorema 
Director: Pier Paolo Pasolini. Cast: Terence Stamp, Silvana Mangano, Massimo Girotti, Anne Wiazemsky. 1968. 97 min. Italy. Color. Italian. 35mm. Print from Cinecittà. 

Porcile 
Director: Pier Paolo Pasolini. Cast: Pierre Clémenti, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Anne Wiazemsky, Alberto Lionello. 1969. 98 min. Italy/France. Color. Italian. 35mm. Print from Cinecittà. 

La sequenza del fiore di carta 
Director: Pier Paolo Pasolini. Cast: Ninetto Davoli, Rochelle Barbini, Aldo Puglisi. 1969. 11 min. Italy/France. Color. Scope. Italian. 35mm. Print from Cinecittà.

All film screenings of Carnal Knowledge: The Films of Pier Paolo Pasolini are available here.