Between machinations, mysteries and
secret rituals, the backdrop to an election of a pontiff has
long been a source of inspiration for filmmakers around the
world.
Perhaps also thanks to the mortal destiny of Pope Francis, a
charismatic pontiff almost ninety years old, at the last Oscars,
winning one for the non-original screenplay, Edward Berger's
Conclave left its mark.
The film with Ralph Fiennes in the role of the protagonist
cardinal, with Isabella Rossellini and Sergio Castellitto among
others, praised by Vatican insiders for the almost total
reliability of what happens between Santa Marta and the Sistine
Chapel, has also turned out to be a box office champion with 115
million dollars globally.
And while waiting for its debut on the small screen on May 5 on
Sky Cinema Uno and streaming on Now, it is already available on
home video with Eagle Pictures or for rent on the streaming
platforms of Prime Video, Apple TV and Mediaset Infinity.
The ascension of Jorge Mario Bergoglio to the papal throne in
March 2013 inaugurated a new trend of films inspired by his
figure.
Less hieratic, more accessible, and profoundly contemporary, the
image of Francis broke clichés on a daily basis, inaugurating a
season of reflections also in cinema on spirituality,
conscience, power and the crisis of religious authority.
The harbinger of this new trend was undoubtedly The Two Popes,
directed by the Brazilian Fernando Meirelles and masterfully
interpreted by Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce.
Released in 2019 and now available on Netflix, the biopic set on
the eve of Benedict XVI's resignation from the papacy imagines a
confrontation between the conservative German pope and the
progressive archbishop of Buenos Aires Bergoglio, engaged in a
dialogue at Castel Gandolfo on faith, sin and the possibility of
change with a finale marked by sport.
The Two Popes also opens with a conclave, that of 2005 in which
the German was elected leaving the Argentine on the verge of
success.
With three Oscar nominations (the screenplay and the two
actors), Meirelles' film brought the Vatican back to the center
of the great global cinematic narrative, already treated several
times by Hollywood in a more fictional way, for example in the
third episode of The Godfather (1990) and in Angels and Demons
in 2009 based on the novel by Dan Brown.
Francis has also inspired documentary filmmakers:. In 2018 there
was Pope Francis - A Man of His Word in which Wim Wenders
presents the pontiff as a moral leader capable of speaking
directly to the men and women of our time on issues such as
poverty, the environment and social justice.
Two years later came Francis by Evgeny Afineevsky, winner of the
Kinéo Award at the Venice Film Festival, causing even more of a
stir for his statements on the rights of migrants and gays.
Dedicated to the Pope's missions abroad, Gianfranco Rosi's film
"In viaggio", presented Out of Competition in Venice in 2022,
emotionally retraces the Pope's travels by viewing the films
that document them: a sort of remote dialogue between the flow
of the archive of the Pope's travels, the images of his cinema,
current events and recent history.
Then there was the 2015 biopic Call Me Francis by Daniele
Luchetti that retraces the youth of Bergoglio (Rodrigo De La
Serna) in Buenos Aires during the dictatorship years, broadcast
last night on Mediaset.
And before that, there was Habemus Papam by Nanni Moretti:
released in 2011 and, although not speaking directly of Francis,
in the character played by Michel Piccoli of a Pope who escapes
from the Vatican anticipated in an almost prophetic way the idea
of ;;a fragile, restless, human papacy.
Finally, totally imaginative in the almost baroque register of
Paolo Sorrentino, there is the Sky series The Young Pope with
Jude Law.
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