CARNET DE NOTES POUR UNE ORESTIE AFRICAINE

Ciné Jonction présents,

in collaboration with the NAC French Theater and the Center for Research on Social Innovations and Transformations at Saint Paul University,

With Professors Julie Paquette and Jonathan Lorange-Millette in attendance:

CARNET DE NOTES POUR UNE ORESTIE AFRICAINE by Pier Paolo Pasolini

Italy. 1970. 70 min. Documentary.

Original Italian version with French subtitles.

In 1969, Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini set out to adapt Aeschylus’s *Oresteia* for the screen, with the intention of casting Africans in the roles. He traveled through Uganda and Tanzania in search of locations and people who could convincingly portray Orestes, Agamemnon, or Clytemnestra. He commented aloud, scrutinized the faces, landscapes, and situations, and read long, meaningful passages from Aeschylus.

He discusses his ideas and travel notes with a group of African students studying at the University of Rome. The film *The African Oresteia* would never see the light of day, but these notes—filmed (and edited) by the filmmaker—offer a meditation on independence, the promises of democracy, and the transition from the so-called “archaic” age to modern civilization.

« Le Carnet de notes pour une Orestie africaine est une œuvre inclassable, qui brouille la frontière entre la fiction et le documentaire et instaure une relation complexe entre l’histoire et le mythe. […] Il est temps de (re)découvrir cette œuvre fondamentale du cinéma pasolinien. » (Anne-Violaine Houcke, Critikat)

FREE apon reservation