With Elettra Stamboulis and Gianluca Costantini in conversation with Edoardo Cavazzuti
Nov 24, 2025 – 11:30
Accademia Ligustica, Largo Alessandro Pertini 4, Genoa, Italy
diPassaggio Festival
A celebrated illustrator, Gianluca Costantini uses drawing as a form of civic engagement: from campaigns for Patrick Zaki and Giulio Regeni to battles for human rights around the world. In this event, his sharp line engages with one of the great unresolved wounds of twentieth-century Italy: the life and death of Pier Paolo Pasolini.
Pasolini’s Secret Diary, A graphic novel
Fifty years ago, Pier Paolo Pasolini was killed. Before that, he had been a child and a young man: his “secret diary” is a true literary invention, built by weaving together his own documents and those of the people who knew him.
A sentimental education that gives us back Pasolini in the golden dust of adolescence, able to look at the world with both wonder and unease.
Between words and drawings, redrawn photographs and collages, an impossible yet necessary coming-of-age novel takes shape which, by restoring his voice, resonates within us as well.
The authors
Elettra Stamboulis
An Italian-Greek writer and art curator, she has written graphic novels, short stories and comics reportage published all over the world. She has curated exhibitions by artists such as Joe Sacco, Marjane Satrapi, Zehra Doğan and Badiucao. A specialist in “non-fiction comics”, she founded the Komikazen festival in Ravenna. Her latest book is Zodiac, written for Ai Weiwei.
Gianluca Costantini
An artist, comics journalist and activist, he is the author of graphic novels such as Libya with Francesca Mannocchi. His drawings are closely linked to human rights campaigns, and he collaborates with organizations such as CPJ, ActionAid and SOS Mediterranee. He won the Amnesty International Italia Award in 2019. Among his most recent books are Zodiac with Ai Weiwei and Julian Assange for Altreconomia.
