A sanctity full of obstacles and suspicions, the one narrated by a master of cinema, Abel Ferrarawho, after last year’s masterclasses, returned to Taormina yesterday with the world premiere of the Italian version of his acclaimed “Padre Pio”already presented in Venice in 2022 and finally in theaters from July 18th for Rs Productions.
Filmed in Puglia and set in 1920set in the aftermath of the First World War, the film tells the story of its beginnings: in the role of the future Saint of Pietralcina Shia LaBeouf, who appears to have converted to Catholicism during filming.
Having arrived in a remote Capuchin convent in San Giovanni Rotondo, in the Gargano mountains, the friar will begin his ministry and his personal religious journey, in which the appearance of the stigmata and a Calvary made of torments and human weaknesses will coincide with a tragic event that will change the course of world history: the massacre of October 14, 1920 that crushed the first democratic elections won by the left and the lives of thirteen socialists and a carabiniere, anticipating fascism.
Amid poverty, disease and political unrest, the arrival of Padre Pio will be fundamental in bringing that devastated place apparently forgotten by God and its inhabitants closer to religion. A film consistent with the religious theme that has always been the fil rouge of his cinema, but also with the devotion of the director, a Buddhist, towards the Saint.
“Working on a documentary about him I came across the story of his arrival coinciding with that massacre,” he told us. “I had already narrated another great figure like Pasolini and made many documentaries, but living in Italy as a Catholic you cannot help but know who Padre Pio is and what he did. The most interesting aspect of his figure is that he, considered the patron saint of gangsters, built a hospital in a place where there was no electricity or running water. This is his real miracle.”
An Italian Christ, according to the director, a popular hero who is often represented as a God, but is a deeply contemporary figure. His charisma? «The talent of knowing how to listen, the brilliant mind, capable of feeling and showing empathy. Everyone needs him and his compassion because he is seen as a brother, a human being».
An Italian story with Italian actors alongside LaBeouf. Among them Asia Argento, Marco Leonardi, Vincenzo Crea, Luca Lionello and Cristina Chiriac, present at the festival with the director, who dubbed themselves in the Italian version, which was handled by the film’s editor Leonardo Daniel Bianchi. The dubbing direction was entrusted to Alessio Pelicella with the dialogues adapted by Claudia Di Lullo. «The actors remade themselves in dubbing, after seeing each other again in Venice, and it turned out to be a beautiful job. Seeing a film in the original and dubbed are two very different experiences. One is looking at the images reading the subtitles, the other is the best because it gives you the best of both situations: the same actors dub themselves in another language and it’s as if they had made the same film twice».
Puglia will once again be the set for the director’s new film “American Nails”, a gangster movie inspired by Euripides’ “Phaedra”, starring Asia Argento and Willem Dafoe. Filming will begin in September in Bari.