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Kidnapped

Rapito

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Nineteenth-century Italy. A six-year-old Jewish child is abducted by Papal soldiers who inform his bourgeois parents that the boy was secretly baptized by a maid. If they want him back, they must convert to Catholicism. In the meantime, the boy will be educated in the Vatican at the feet of Pope Pius IX (Paolo Pierobon). There’s an international outcry, but even as the Church loses political ground with the emergence of an Italian state, the Pope remains adamant: the child has been saved.

Marco Bellocchio — 83 and flourishing in the sixth decade of an illustrious career with such acclaimed dramas as The Traitor, Dormant Beauty and Exterior Night — seizes on this true story to mount a fierce denunciation of anti-Semitism and the excesses of the Catholic Church, as well as to chronicle a pivotal chapter in Italian history. Which is not to say you won’t find it resonates with matters closer to home. Bellocchio’s operatic approach is rich, charged, full of fire.

A moving story of faith, loss and family set against the backdrop of a significant moment in Italian history, Kidnapped brings Edgardo Mortara’s unforgettable story to life.
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Media Partner

Director
Cast

Paolo Pierobon, Fausto Russo Alesi Barbara Ronchi, Enea Sala, Leonardo Maltese

Credits
Country of Origin

Italy/France/Germany

Year

2023

Series

Showcase

Language

In Italian with English subtitles

Film Contact
Content Warning

Violence

18+
125 min

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Credits

Executive Producer

Patrick Carrarin, Maurizio Feverati, Alessio Lazzareschi

Producer

Beppe Caschetto, Simone Gattoni

Screenwriter

Marco Bellocchio, Susanna Nicchiarelli, Edoardo Albinati, Daniela Ceselli

Editor

Francesca Calvelli, Stefano Mariotti

Production Design

Andrea Castorina

Original Music

Fabio Massimo Capogrosso

Director

Marco Bellocchio headshot

Marco Bellocchio

Bellocchio was born in Piacenza in 1939. In 1959 he abandoned philosophy studies at the Catholic University of Milan and enrolled at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome. His debut feature film, I pugni in tasca (Fists in the Pocket), won an award at Locarno in 1965 and garnered him international recognition. In 2011 he received the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice International Film Festival. His work has been the subject of dozens of retrospectives around the world, including at MoMA (New York) in 2014 to commemorate his then 50 years of filmmaking.

Filmography: Fists in the Pocket (1965); Good Morning, Night (2003); Vincere (2009); Blood of My Blood (2015); The Traitor (2019)

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