45-year-old Vittorio was born and raised in a working-class borgata of Rome. One morning he sets out from Via del Mandrione to reach Rio della Grana on foot: he has to see an old friend, the son of a criminal who died years ago. Along the road, he meets young guys and girls from his neighbourhood who all share the same problem: a chronic lack of money. Vittorio tells them old stories of the borgata, in particular the stories of Stracci, Accattone and Mamma Roma, characters from Pier Paolo Pasolini’s first three films, as if they really existed.

DIRECTOR'S NOTES:
Pier Paolo Pasolini wrote Il Rio della Grana in the spring of 1955. The great poet started the story with the words: “The borgata of Gelsomino: hovels not even a thousand metres from the Pope’s bedroom". Followed by: "Rio della Grana: a stream of mud, a drain in the midst of the hovels". Therefore, Rio della Grana and the borgata of Gelsomino must have been located above Via Gregorio VII, where present-day Via del Gelsomino is, or below it, where the Passeggiata del Gelsomino is located. As such, it’s quite a distance from Pietralata or Pigneto, where Pasolini shot his first films. One day, a poet friend told me he had dreamt of going for a swim in the Rio, and had seen the borgata on fire, just as Pasolini wrote in his story. That’s where I got the inspiration to write this story.