En 1966, atteint d'un grave ulcère, Pier Paolo Pasolini revient sur sa vie et son oeuvre. Il rédige alors un long poème autobiographique, en prose, qu'il remanie plusieurs fois et finit par délaisser. Trente ans après sa mort, Bertrand Bonello décide d'en faire un film.

In 1966, suffering from a serious ulcer, Pier Paolo Pasolini looked back on his life and work. He wrote a long autobiographical poem in prose, which he reworked several times and eventually abandoned. Thirty years after Pasolini's death, Bertrand Bonello decided to make a film about it, in homage to this overexcited artist and key figure of the 20th century.