Based on a true story, Kidnapped is about a Jewish boy abducted by Catholic Church authorities in 19th century Bologna after a servant said she had secretly baptised him as a seemingly fatally ill baby.
“I’ve written a letter to Pope Francis, I hope he has a desire to see my film, he has so many more important things to do, but who knows he might find the time for an enjoyable and interesting evening among friends,” the 83-year-old director said, fresh from a David di Donatello best director win for his latest work on the Moro kidnapping, Exterior, Night.
“Some priests have seen Kidnapped and they were moved and thoughtful, but the most significant feedback was that of the Jewish leaders who also saw it in a preview,” the openly atheist director said.
“None of us is Jewish and so we risked with this story, but in the end they were very moved, and I was pleased”.
Kidnapped, which is competing for the Golden Palm in Cannes, is set for release in Italian cinemas on Thursday.
The opening night’s takings will be donated by producers to those affected by the deadly and devastating Emilia Romagna floods that have claimed 14 lives.
Exterior, Night, Bellocchio’s David winner, is about the kidnapping of former Italian premier and Christian Democracy bigwig Aldo Moro, who was murdered by Red Brigades terrorists in 1978 after being held captive for 55 days.
It is Bellocchio’s second film about the Moro kidnapping after the 2003 picture, Good Morning, Night.
Last year the Cannes Film Festival paid tribute to the cult engage’ director with a three-day event culminating in the presentation of a lifetime achievement award, after his most recent film at the time, Marx Can Wait, was shown there.
Bellocchio whose films include Fists in the Pocket, The Prince of Homburg, The Nanny, The Religion Lesson, Win, Dormant Beauty and The Traitor, received the award along with Jodie Foster on the final evening of the 74th edition of the iconic French film fest.
A friend of late cinema great Pier Paolo Pasolini, Bellocchio’s other films include China is Near (1967), Slap the Monster on Page One (1972), In the name of the Father - a satire on a Catholic boarding school that shares affinities with Lindsay Anderson’s If.... (1972), Victory March (1976), A Leap in the Dark (1980), Henry IV (1984), Devil in the Flesh (1986), and My Mother’s Smile (2002), which told the story of a wealthy Italian artist, a ‘default-Marxist and atheist’, who suddenly discovers that the Vatican is proposing to make his detested mother a saint.
In 1991 he won the Silver Bear - Special Jury Prize at the 41st Berlin International Film Festival for his film The Conviction.
In 1995 he directed a documentary about the Red Brigades and the kidnapping of Aldo Moro, entitled Broken Dreams, and in 2003, he directed the feature film on the same theme, Good Morning, Night.
In 2006 his film The Wedding Director was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at that year's Cannes Film Festival.
In 2009 he directed Win, a biographical drama based on the life of Benito Mussolini’s first wife, Ida Dalser.
He also finished Sorelle Mai, an experimental film that was shot over ten years with the students of six separate workshops playing themselves.
He was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 68th Venice International Film Festival in 2011.
In his 2012 film Dormant Beauty, Bellocchio condemned the Catholic Church’s interference in politics over the high-profile euthanasia and right-to-die case involving Eluana Englaro.
ANSA
