German director Wim Wenders has made a documentary on Pope Francis in which the pontiff speaks to the audience, the SIR news agency said Friday. The doc, entitled Pope Francis, A Man Of His Word, will see Francis tackling issues dear to his heart like ecology, migration, consumerism and social justice, SIR said. Wenders agreed the project with Msgr Dario Viganò, the Holy See's communications pointman.
SIR reported that it was publicly announcing the film-making project, shared with Mgr. Dario E. Viganò, Prefect of the Secretariat for Communications of the Holy See.
It noted that Wenders had received several Oscar nominations with the documentaries "Buena Vista Social Club", "Pina" and "The Salt of the Earth", and was awarded the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival with "Paris, Texas", and the Golden Lion at Venice with "The State of Things". It described the project as "a documentary film in which, for the first time, Francis, that is, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the 266th Pope of the Catholic Church, will tell his story directly to the audience." SIR said "Francis will address topics dear to his heart such as ecology, migration, consumerism or social justice, by answering questions put to him from the peripheries of the world". Internationally distributed by Focus Features, which is part of the NBCUniversal Group, the film Pope Francis, A man of his word" is produced by Wim Wenders himself with Samanta Gandolfi Branca, Alessandro Lo Monaco ("The World's Smallest Army"), Andrea Gambetta and David Rosier ("The Salt of the Earth"). The film production is by Célestes Images, Vatican Television Centre, Solares Fondazione delle Arti, PTS Art's Factory, Neue Road Movies, Fondazione Solares Suisse, and Decia Films.
According to SIR, Msgr Viganò "will certainly speak of the film" at the 70th Cannes Film Festival on 25 May. During the round table on "cinema and spirituality", Mgr.
Viganò will take the floor with Wenders, world-famous director of "Wings of Desire/the sky over Berlin", and together with him, the prefect of the Holy See will "explain what gave rise to the idea of involving the Pope in person," SIR said.
In reality, it said, Mgr. Viganò has already given his first impressions on the film: "Whenever I think of Wim Wenders' poetics, I have before my eyes the images of the guardian angels that he sketched in his films, 'Wings of Desire' and 'Faraway, So Close', which are so far from the devotional twilight. "It is precisely for his careful and poetic look, able to tell the world of the visible and the invisible alike, that we, together with the Vatican Television Centre, wanted to have him onboard for the TV direction of the opening of the Holy Door in St Peter's, for the Jubilee of Mercy". With Wenders, Mgr. Viganò continued, "the idea was born of a documentary film that would tell the story of Pope Francis, making him a protagonist for the first time, so that he could become engaged in the seventh art, but above all with viewers.
Through the cinema, the Pope wanted to take a new path, to reach out to the entire community, made up of men and women of any faith and culture, with a desire to answer their questions. "So he went on camera as Leo XIII did over a century ago, when for the first time he appeared on screen, blessing the cinema itself".
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA
