The Ploy

Pasolini was found dead on November 2, 1975, on a soccer field near the hydroplane base in Ostia, near Rome. He had been beaten and then run over by a car. Behind the wheel was 17-year-old Pino Pelosi, who claimed during the trial that he had acted in self-defense against persistent sexual advances from the then 53-year-old Pier Paolo. The murderer was sentenced to nine years in prison for intentional manslaughter. As for Pasolini – people said he had “brought it upon himself.”

And yet, it was all a lie, a conspiracy. Pasolini knew, he had started to understand. He wrote about it in his articles. In 1975, he was killed precisely to silence the greatest intellectual of his time, whose voice carried significant weight in public opinion (regardless of political affiliation). He was a man who had uncovered the intricate mechanisms of power, the forces maneuvering Italian politics in the 1970s. It was the era of lead and terrorism, of civil war, overzealous secret services, and the Italian Communist Party – the strongest in all of Western Europe. A revolution could have happened. But a counter-revolution was coming, and Pasolini had to be eliminated.

Behind the staged trials, false evidence, errors in the investigation, blackmail, and silence, lay the actions of the state apparatus. Today, more than 30 years after the events, we can understand what Pasolini knew. David Grieco, a friend and collaborator of Pasolini, attempts to reveal the truth based on evidence, testimonies, and documents from this complex legal case. His film is not just an ordinary narrative feature. It is an attempt to reconstruct facts that have yet to be officially confirmed by the Italian justice system. It is a test of civic and intellectual integrity for those who seek to understand, those who fight for truth and justice, and those who have the courage to expose power.

It is a tribute to Pasolini.

Stanisław Bardadin

David Grieco (born 1951) is an Italian director, screenwriter, and journalist whose work explores political and social issues. Having collaborated with Pier Paolo Pasolini, he developed a vision of cinema as a means of critiquing reality. His directorial debut, Evilenko (2004), based on the story of a Russian serial killer, examines evil within the collapse of a totalitarian system. In The Ploy (2016), he tackled the controversial final days of Pasolini, shedding new light on his tragic death. Grieco’s films blend sharp social analysis with psychological depth, establishing him as an important voice in contemporary Italian cinema.