2015 is the 40th anniversary of the death of Italian poet and filmmaker, essayist and novelist Pier Paolo Pasolini, poet and filmmaker, essayist and novelist and the Italian Cultural Institute in Edinburgh has organized a two-day event to celebrate his life and work.

With input from Paolo Valesio (Columbia University), Robert Gordon (Cambridge University), and Angela Felice (Centro Studi Pier Paolo Pasolini), today's opening events at the institute and in the Italian Department of the University of Edinburgh also feature screenings of Pasolini's short film La Ricotta (Curd Cheese, 1962) and the documentary Sopralluoghi in Palestina (Location Hunting in Palestine, 1963).

Tomorrow Il Vangelo secondo Matteo (The Gospel According to Matthew, 1964) will be screened at The Filmhouse. The film was shot with non-professional actors, including Pasolini's mother in the role of Mary, on various locations in Central and Southern Italy, and won many awards including The Silver Lion at the XXV Venice Film Festival

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Edinburgh's fortnightly Playtime jazz session puts the spotlight on the music of Thelonious Monk tomorrow. Once considered an eccentric maverick by the jazz establishment, Monk has been re-evaluated over the years as a composer of some of the most distinctive and now most popularly played items in the jazz canon. The Playtime house quartet, saxophonist Martin Kershaw, guitarist Graeme Stephen, bassist Mario Caribe and drummer Tom Bancroft will play two sets of Monk's idiosyncratic but highly approachable music at the Outhouse in Broughton Street Lane, starting at 8pm.

playtime-music.com