Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentMarco Bellocchio, who is in Cannes with TV series “Esterno Notte” about the kidnapping and assassination of former Italian premier Aldo Moro by Red Brigades terrorists, is set to return behind camera in late June.The veteran Italian auteur and Cannes aficionado will reconstruct the true tale of Edgardo Mortara, a young Jewish boy who was kidnapped and forcibly raised as a Christian in 19th century Italy.Mortara was a young Jewish boy living in Bologna, Italy, who in 1858, after being secretly baptized, was forcibly taken from his family to be raised as a Christian.
His parents’ struggle to free their son became part of a larger political battle that pitted the papacy against forces of democracy and Italian unification.
Mortara went on to become a priest in the Augustinian order. It’s a story that Stephen Spielberg had his eye on, having announced in 2016 that he would make a drama about Mortara based on a book by U.S.
academic David Kertzer.Bellocchio, as previously announced, is instead basing his pic, titled “La conversione” (“The Conversion”), on first-hand documents.
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