Pope Francis gave Martin Scorsese his
last interview on camera in December, a session now included in
a new film on Scholas Occurrentes, a non-profit organization
founded by the late Argentine pontiff in 2013, the year of his
election, to promote the "culture of encounter" among young
people through cinema.
The conversation between the 82-year-old director of Te Last
Temptation of Christ and Silence, a film about the Jesuits in
Japan, with the first Jesuit pope in history were filmed in the
Vatican last December and included in the new documentary Aldeas
- A New Story.
The film will show young people in Indonesia, Gambia and Italy
who participate in the program and make short films.
It is "rooted in the Pope's belief in the sacred nature of
creativity," according to a statement released by the
production.
Excerpts from conversations between Francis and Scorsese will be
included in the narrative of the film, which does not yet have a
release date.
"It was important to Francis that people from all over the world
exchange ideas with respect while preserving their cultural
identity, and cinema is the best medium for this purpose,"
Scorsese said.
Before his death, the Pope had called Aldeas "a poetic project
because it goes to the roots of what human life is."
Scorsese, who is Catholic and very close to Pope Francis'
church, was among the first to express condolences on April 21
for the pontiff's death.
"It was an immense loss for the world. I was fortunate to know
him and I will miss his warmth and affection," said the
director, who said the Pope left behind "an inextinguishable
light."
The author of many Catholic-themed films, including The Last
Temptation of Christ, which provoked protests from religious
groups when it was released in 1998, Scorsese met with Francis
several times during his papal mandate: first in 2016, to
discuss his film Silence about the "hidden Christians" of
seventeenth-century Japan, and then in 2023 when the director
announced that he had responded to the Pope's appeal to artists
by starting work on a new film about Jesus, the screenplay for
which is finished but still in the drawer.
Last year, the director attended the Wednesday general audience
in the Paul VI Hall and had a personal meeting with the Pontiff
in the adjacent study.
On that occasion, he donated to the Pope a photo book dedicated
to his film Killers of the Flower Moon.
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