BENEATH THE WIDE WIDE HEAVEN
An essay film lingering in the shadow of Pier Paolo Pasolini—Marxist, Catholic, artist—who carried contradiction like a second skin. Here, Pasolini is not merely a director, but a conduit, absorbing the world’s chaos and channeling it into cinema.
The film watches Pasolini as he watches the world: eyes fixed on history’s unraveling, his mind lit with fury and grief. Through fragments of La Ricotta and the brutal imagery of Salò, the work functions as a meditation on the auteur as seismograph, recording the tremors of politics, power, and pain—framing cinema as an uncompromising act of resistance, mourning, and vision.
“A remarkable film in both its depth and scope of emotion… a shifting kaleidoscope of human feeling, from despair and anguish to the purest joys of flesh and spirit. Throughout the film, beautifully poignant moments draw on archetypal cinematic imagery… Bizri demonstrates the role of director as conveyor of human experience with profound beauty.”
— Katherine Marie Hooper, Filmmaker & Writer
Exhibition & Awards
World Premiere: Oberhausen International Short Film Festival (2016)
Best Editing Award, Ramunas Atelier International Independent Film Awards (2016)
15 min (2016)