Catholic Film Festival Goes to Rome

Movies will focus on Jesus, Blessed John Paul II, the priesthood and Pope Pius XII.

(photo: Shutterstock)

ROME (CNS) — Under the patronage of the Pontifical Council for Culture, a Rome film festival will feature historic and modern films that highlight Jesus, the priesthood and Pope Pius XII.

The International Catholic Film Festival also will award a new prize — “The Silver Fish” — for best film, best documentary, best short film, best actor/actress and best director, chosen from a total of 746 films that “promote universal moral values” and positive role models, festival organizers said in a May 9 press release.

The jury choosing the winners May 19 includes Msgr. Franco Perazzolo, who works at the pontifical council, Italian Princess Maria Pia Ruspoli, an Italian Oscar-winning production designer and an Italian film producer.

The May 12-21 festival will be in a concert hall just blocks from St. Peter’s Square.

Liana Marabini, an Italian director, producer and president of the film festival, told reporters she wanted to focus on the priesthood because priests are often “overlooked” or portrayed in a negative light in films.

“They need to be valued, loved and welcomed” by the laity and the wider community, she said.

Italian Biblicist and composer, Msgr. Marco Frisina, said art is a valuable way to communicate important values because “it can open the heart even in people who don’t believe” in God.

With music, films and other art forms, “people are naturally predisposed to listen” to the creator’s message, he said.

Best film, best director and best actor or actress were to be chosen from three finalists: Duns Scoto, an Italian movie about Blessed John Duns Scotus, by Fernando Muraca; God’s Mighty Servant, a German film about Pope Pius XII’s adviser and helper, Sister Pascalina, by Markus Rosenmuller; and Marcelino Pan y Vino, Jose Luis Gutierrez’s Mexican remake of the religious classic.

The best documentary was to be chosen from Nine Days That Changed the World about Blessed Pope John Paul II’s 1979 visit to Poland; Teresa di Gesu Bambino, an Italian documentary about St. Therese of Lisieux; and La Ultima Cima (The Last Summit), a film about the life and death of a Spanish mountain climber and priest.

The film festival’s opening day was to be dedicated to cinematic portrayals of Jesus Christ, including the 2000 film The Miracle Maker and the 1916 black-and-white film Christus.

The next day was to be dedicated to “the priest in the collective imagination” and was to show the 2010 French film Of Gods and Men as well as Alfred Hitchcock’s 1953 drama I Confess starring Montgomery Clift as a Catholic priest.

Other themed days were to be dedicated to documentaries, young directors, Italian basilicas and short films.

The day dedicated to Pope Pius XII was to include a number of clips from archived footage of his wartime pontificate from the Vatican’s Film Library.