"This will create new tensions." Cohen Media Group has unveiled an official US trailer for the Italian dramatic thriller now titled (in full) Kidnapped: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara. This premiered at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival last year under the shorter title Rapito. This is legendary Italian director Marco Bellocchio's period drama, depicting a scandalous & captivating true story. It also played at TIFF, New York, Mill Valley, and AFI Fest last year. This grand, historical fresco depicts the true story of a young Jewish child who, in mid-19th century Bologna, was abducted from his family by the church on the Pope's orders. The child had been secretly baptized by his nurse as a baby, and the papal law is unquestionable: he must now receive a Catholic education. Edgardo's parents, distraught, will do anything to get their son back. Supported by public opinion and the international Jewish community,...
- 5/10/2024
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
Marco Bellocchio is the 84-year-old Italian director behind films like “Fists in the Pocket” from 1965, “Vincere” from 2009, and “Devil in the Flesh” from 1986. His strict Catholic upbringing has led him to make films that take a critical eye toward the Church, condemning its politics and documented history of abuse. Now, he is taking the Church to task once again with his latest film, “Kidnapped: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara,” out May 24 from Cohen Media Group. Watch the trailer, an IndieWire exclusive, below.
Here’s the official synopsis: “In 1858, in the Jewish quarter of Bologna, the Pope’s soldiers burst into the home of the Mortara family. By order of the cardinal, they have come to take Edgardo, their seven-year-old son. The child had been secretly baptized by his nurse as a baby and the papal law is unquestionable: he must receive a Catholic education. Edgardo’s parents, distraught, will do...
Here’s the official synopsis: “In 1858, in the Jewish quarter of Bologna, the Pope’s soldiers burst into the home of the Mortara family. By order of the cardinal, they have come to take Edgardo, their seven-year-old son. The child had been secretly baptized by his nurse as a baby and the papal law is unquestionable: he must receive a Catholic education. Edgardo’s parents, distraught, will do...
- 5/9/2024
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
Kidnapped imagines every parent's nightmare: what happens when your child is taken from you? And even worse, what if that horrifying reality is enshrined in law, the very thing you’d hope would help you receive justice? It’s hard not to get swept up in the emotions of Marco Bellocchio’s Kidnapped and the story of young Edgardo Mortara (Enea Sala), taken from his family and forced into a life of Catholicism. Writer-director Bellocchio’s visual language is essential to the storytelling: this is a staggeringly beautiful film, and its vast sense of scale effectively highlights the overwhelming struggle of the Mortara family and Edgardo’s personal crisis of faith.
Based on a true story, Bellocchio’s script manages to make a thorny and complicated history feel accessible, tracing decades of conflict into an accessible two-plus hours. A historical drama about conflicting faiths might sound daunting, but this is immaculately paced and emotionally driven,...
Based on a true story, Bellocchio’s script manages to make a thorny and complicated history feel accessible, tracing decades of conflict into an accessible two-plus hours. A historical drama about conflicting faiths might sound daunting, but this is immaculately paced and emotionally driven,...
- 4/24/2024
- by Barry Levitt
- Empire - Movies
The maverick auteur of the 1960s Italian cinematic stage, Marco Bellocchio, remains subversive even in his later years, as evidenced by his directorial venture Kidnapped (2023). This period piece, which was in competition at Cannes, delves into the harrowing abduction of six-year-old Jewish child Edgardo Mortara by the Catholic Church in 1858. While Bellocchio's contextual and visual palette is eclectic, his oeuvre is primarily recognised for its sardonic critique and razor-sharp mockery of hegemony, and Kidnapped is no exception. Here, he boldly pits the dominant religious institution against a minority family, unravelling historical facts and transforming them into a personal experience.
The revelation of Edgardo's secret baptism, performed a few months after his birth by the well-meaning but dim-witted nursemaid Anna (Aurora Camatti), becomes known to papal authorities six years later. They forcibly seize the child from his family, consigning him to Pope Pius IX's religious school. Enea Sala...
The revelation of Edgardo's secret baptism, performed a few months after his birth by the well-meaning but dim-witted nursemaid Anna (Aurora Camatti), becomes known to papal authorities six years later. They forcibly seize the child from his family, consigning him to Pope Pius IX's religious school. Enea Sala...
- 11/27/2023
- by Levan Tskhovrebadze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Marco Bellocchio excels at grand gestures. The Italian title of the filmmaker’s latest, Kidnapped, appears on screen in large, blood-red letters, like the screaming headline of a tabloid news article. Yet it’s placed over a deceptively serene scene, circa the late-1850s, of servant woman Anna Morisi (Aurora Camatti) strolling into a store across the street from her Bologna-residing employers, the Jewish Mortara family. The clashing juxtaposition of words and images is apt, for none of the characters suspects that history is about to be made.
The Mortara case is one of the most egregious stains on the legacy of the Catholic Church. It captured the world’s attention at a particularly fraught moment, right as the Papal States (occupied Italian territories that had for centuries been under the direct rule of successive popes) were close to permanent dissolution, and global antisemitism was on a genocidal rise.
In...
The Mortara case is one of the most egregious stains on the legacy of the Catholic Church. It captured the world’s attention at a particularly fraught moment, right as the Papal States (occupied Italian territories that had for centuries been under the direct rule of successive popes) were close to permanent dissolution, and global antisemitism was on a genocidal rise.
In...
- 9/8/2023
- by Keith Uhlich
- Slant Magazine
Following the announcement of the North American acquisition by Cohen Media, The Match Factory has revealed further sales in key territories for Marco Bellocchio’s Cannes Competition title “Kidnapped.”
The film adapts the true story of the kidnapping of the young Jewish boy Edgardo Mortara, starring Paolo Pierobon, Fausto Russo Alesi, Barbara Ronchi, Enea Sala and Leonardo Maltese.
The film has its release secured in the following territories: U.K. and Ireland (Curzon), Australia and New Zealand (Palace Entertainment), Japan (Fine Films), Latin America (Cine Video y TV), Spain (Vertigo Films), Benelux (Cherry Pickers), Switzerland (Agora Films), Poland (Best Film), Portugal (Alambique), Greece and Cyprus (Rosebud.21), Czech Republic and Slovakia (Aerofilms), Ex-Yugoslavia (McF Megacom), Hungary (Vertigo Media), Baltics (Kino Pavasaris), Bulgaria (Art Fest), Israel (United King Video), Ukraine (Traffic Films), Taiwan (Light Year Images) and Indonesia (Falcon Pictures). Further territories are in negotiation.
The film is a production by Ibc Movie...
The film adapts the true story of the kidnapping of the young Jewish boy Edgardo Mortara, starring Paolo Pierobon, Fausto Russo Alesi, Barbara Ronchi, Enea Sala and Leonardo Maltese.
The film has its release secured in the following territories: U.K. and Ireland (Curzon), Australia and New Zealand (Palace Entertainment), Japan (Fine Films), Latin America (Cine Video y TV), Spain (Vertigo Films), Benelux (Cherry Pickers), Switzerland (Agora Films), Poland (Best Film), Portugal (Alambique), Greece and Cyprus (Rosebud.21), Czech Republic and Slovakia (Aerofilms), Ex-Yugoslavia (McF Megacom), Hungary (Vertigo Media), Baltics (Kino Pavasaris), Bulgaria (Art Fest), Israel (United King Video), Ukraine (Traffic Films), Taiwan (Light Year Images) and Indonesia (Falcon Pictures). Further territories are in negotiation.
The film is a production by Ibc Movie...
- 6/22/2023
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
For his last trick, at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, Italian maestro Marco Bellocchio turned the 1978 Red Brigade kidnapping and assassination of Prime Minister Aldo Moro, an unparalleled event in Italian political history, into a riveting five-and-a-half-hour miniseries called Exterior Night. For his newest trick––Kidnapped, which debuted in competition in Cannes––he returns to Italian history, this time to tell the story of Edgardo Mortara, a seven-year-old Jewish boy who was taken from his family in Bologna to be raised Catholic in the actual arms of Pope Pius IX.
“Why?” his family cries in a thousand different ways, powerless to the pawns of the Cardinal that carry Edgardo (Enea Sala) away in the night plainly. Because there’s a rumor he was secretly baptized. There were no witnesses, and the Mortara family hasn’t even been informed who or where this rumor came from. But it doesn’t matter. The...
“Why?” his family cries in a thousand different ways, powerless to the pawns of the Cardinal that carry Edgardo (Enea Sala) away in the night plainly. Because there’s a rumor he was secretly baptized. There were no witnesses, and the Mortara family hasn’t even been informed who or where this rumor came from. But it doesn’t matter. The...
- 5/25/2023
- by Luke Hicks
- The Film Stage
At a spry 83-years-old, director Marco Bellocchio is about 18 months the junior to last year’s Cannes acclaimed octogenarian, “Eo” prizewinner Jerzy Skolimowski, though the Italian maestro’s latest film has a much creakier feel. That’s hardly a fatal flaw, as Bellochio’s Cannes-premiering “Kidnapped” offers the comforting pleasures of a cracking tale well told, a handsome tour of Old World locales and a throwback mix of Big Themes served on heaping platters.
The story certainly lends itself to such heft, as it follows the true tale of Edgardo Mortara, a Jewish boy confiscated from his family by the all-powerful church and raised to be a priest. What pushed the local authorities to turn up unannounced one night — making demands of a Jewish family that would echo persecutions past and to come – becomes clear when church police set their sight on a 6-year-old boy and tell his parents, “Someone betrayed you.
The story certainly lends itself to such heft, as it follows the true tale of Edgardo Mortara, a Jewish boy confiscated from his family by the all-powerful church and raised to be a priest. What pushed the local authorities to turn up unannounced one night — making demands of a Jewish family that would echo persecutions past and to come – becomes clear when church police set their sight on a 6-year-old boy and tell his parents, “Someone betrayed you.
- 5/23/2023
- by Ben Croll
- The Wrap
Solid, stately and — like the collapsing Papal States of the Italian Peninsula in the late 1800s — just a little too tradition-bound for its own good, Marco Bellocchio’s “Kidnapped,” based on a 19th-century case of religious abduction, opens with an eavesdrop. Anna (Aurora Camatti), the Catholic servant to the Jewish Mortara family of Bologna, pauses on the stairs after a tryst and spies her employers, Momolo Mortara (Fausto Russo Alesi) and his wife Marianna (Barbara Ronchi), murmuring a blessing in Hebrew over their newborn baby boy. It is not clear yet why the sight should make her stop in her tracks, but over the course of over two sedate but mostly absorbing hours, the veteran director follows its repercussions with a singleminded, narrow dedication that sits strangely at odds with the film’s immaculately expansive production design.
Six years later, the Mortara family has itself expanded greatly. The boy, Edgardo...
Six years later, the Mortara family has itself expanded greatly. The boy, Edgardo...
- 5/23/2023
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
At 83 years-old, Italian auteur Marco Bellocchio has been on a hot streak these past years, with the success both at home and abroad of his 2019 Sicilian mafia epic, The Traitor, and his first ever TV miniseries, Exterior, Night, playing well around Europe.
His latest feature — the 31st in a prolific career that began at age 24 with his breakout drama, Fists in the Pocket — is probably not his greatest, but that’s not really a put-down in a filmography filled with memorable work, including other recent movies like Vincere and Good Morning, Night.
Kidnapped (Rapito), a period piece about a Jewish boy taken away from his family to live in the Vatican in 1858, may not be on par with those titles, but it’s still an engaging and somewhat fascinating film, telling a true story that probes historic Italian antisemitism and the follies of the Catholic church.
Filled with the director...
His latest feature — the 31st in a prolific career that began at age 24 with his breakout drama, Fists in the Pocket — is probably not his greatest, but that’s not really a put-down in a filmography filled with memorable work, including other recent movies like Vincere and Good Morning, Night.
Kidnapped (Rapito), a period piece about a Jewish boy taken away from his family to live in the Vatican in 1858, may not be on par with those titles, but it’s still an engaging and somewhat fascinating film, telling a true story that probes historic Italian antisemitism and the follies of the Catholic church.
Filled with the director...
- 5/23/2023
- by Jordan Mintzer
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Revered Italian auteur Marco Bellocchio is returning to Cannes with “Kidnapped,” a drama that reconstructs the true tale of Edgardo Mortara, a young Jewish boy who was kidnapped and forcibly raised as a Christian in 19th century Italy.
It’s a story that Steven Spielberg had his eye on, having announced in 2016 that he would make a drama about Mortara for which he began scouting locations in Italy.
Last year, Bellocchio was in Cannes with another kidnapping drama, the limited TV series “Exterior Night,” about the abduction and assassination of former Italian premier Aldo Moro by Red Brigades terrorists. The veteran auteur’s first foray in TV has had the rare distinction of playing well in Italian cinemas — in two installments — before airing on Rai and selling globally. Earlier this month it also scored a slew of statuettes, including best director, at Italy’s David Awards, the country’s top film prizes.
It’s a story that Steven Spielberg had his eye on, having announced in 2016 that he would make a drama about Mortara for which he began scouting locations in Italy.
Last year, Bellocchio was in Cannes with another kidnapping drama, the limited TV series “Exterior Night,” about the abduction and assassination of former Italian premier Aldo Moro by Red Brigades terrorists. The veteran auteur’s first foray in TV has had the rare distinction of playing well in Italian cinemas — in two installments — before airing on Rai and selling globally. Earlier this month it also scored a slew of statuettes, including best director, at Italy’s David Awards, the country’s top film prizes.
- 5/23/2023
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Variety has been given exclusive access to the trailer for Marco Bellocchio’s “Kidnapped” (Rapito), which has its world premiere in Competition at the Cannes Film Festival.
The film starts in 1858 in the Jewish quarter of Bologna, when the Pope’s soldiers burst into the home of the Mortara family. By order of the cardinal, they have come to take Edgardo, their seven-year-old son. The child had been secretly baptized by his nurse as a baby and the papal law is unquestionable: he must receive a Catholic education.
Edgardo’s parents, distraught, will do anything to get their son back. Supported by public opinion and the international Jewish community, the Mortaras’ struggle quickly takes a political dimension. But the Church and the Pope will not agree to return the child, to consolidate an increasingly wavering power.
The film stars Paolo Pierobon, Fausto Russo Alesi, Barbara Ronchi, Enea Sala (as the...
The film starts in 1858 in the Jewish quarter of Bologna, when the Pope’s soldiers burst into the home of the Mortara family. By order of the cardinal, they have come to take Edgardo, their seven-year-old son. The child had been secretly baptized by his nurse as a baby and the papal law is unquestionable: he must receive a Catholic education.
Edgardo’s parents, distraught, will do anything to get their son back. Supported by public opinion and the international Jewish community, the Mortaras’ struggle quickly takes a political dimension. But the Church and the Pope will not agree to return the child, to consolidate an increasingly wavering power.
The film stars Paolo Pierobon, Fausto Russo Alesi, Barbara Ronchi, Enea Sala (as the...
- 5/3/2023
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
La conversione
The true story has put the fear of god in the directors who consider making it, but finally, it was Italian maestro Marco Bellocchio who took on the project on a person who goes by the name of Edgardo Mortara. An almost three-plus month shoot in Bologna and Rome, Marco Bellocchio co-wrote with Susanna Nicchiarelli, this is the true-life drama set in 1858. La Conversione stars Paolo Pierobon, Barbara Ronchi, Fausto Russo Alesi, Filippo Timi, Fabrizio Gifuni, Enea Sala, playing Mortara as a child, and Leonardo Maltese, playing Mortara as an older boy.…...
The true story has put the fear of god in the directors who consider making it, but finally, it was Italian maestro Marco Bellocchio who took on the project on a person who goes by the name of Edgardo Mortara. An almost three-plus month shoot in Bologna and Rome, Marco Bellocchio co-wrote with Susanna Nicchiarelli, this is the true-life drama set in 1858. La Conversione stars Paolo Pierobon, Barbara Ronchi, Fausto Russo Alesi, Filippo Timi, Fabrizio Gifuni, Enea Sala, playing Mortara as a child, and Leonardo Maltese, playing Mortara as an older boy.…...
- 1/19/2023
- by Eric Lavallée
- IONCINEMA.com
Shooting has begun in Roccabianca in the province of Parma, Italy, on Marco Bellocchio’s new film, “La Conversione” (The Conversion), inspired by the story of Edgardo Mortara, the Jewish child who in 1858 was removed from his family to be raised as a Catholic in the custody of Pope Pius IX. Bellocchio is pictured, above, on set in Roccabianca this week.
“La Conversione” stars Paolo Pierobon, Barbara Ronchi, Fausto Russo Alesi, Filippo Timi, Fabrizio Gifuni, Enea Sala, playing Mortara as a child, and Leonardo Maltese, playing Mortara as an older boy.
The film is an IBCmovie and Kavac Film production with Rai Cinema, with the support of the Emilia Romagna region and its film commission, in co-production with Ad Vitam Production in France, and Match Factory Productions in Germany. It is produced by Beppe Caschetto and Simone Gattoni.
The screenplay is by Bellocchio and Susanna Nicchiarelli, with the collaboration of Edoardo Albinati and Daniela Ceselli,...
“La Conversione” stars Paolo Pierobon, Barbara Ronchi, Fausto Russo Alesi, Filippo Timi, Fabrizio Gifuni, Enea Sala, playing Mortara as a child, and Leonardo Maltese, playing Mortara as an older boy.
The film is an IBCmovie and Kavac Film production with Rai Cinema, with the support of the Emilia Romagna region and its film commission, in co-production with Ad Vitam Production in France, and Match Factory Productions in Germany. It is produced by Beppe Caschetto and Simone Gattoni.
The screenplay is by Bellocchio and Susanna Nicchiarelli, with the collaboration of Edoardo Albinati and Daniela Ceselli,...
- 7/1/2022
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
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