Kidnapped

Marco Bellocchio · 2023 · 134 minutes
July 17 · Regal Riviera · 7:00 p.m.

“An unabashed melodrama. The story is kept at a stress-inducing simmer, with occasional surges of operatic emotion.” – Slant

“A moving story of faith, loss and family set against the backdrop of a significant moment in Italian history.” – Alliance of Women Film Journalists

“This already looks like a classic.” – The Guardian

In 1858, in the Jewish quarter of Bologna, the Pope’s soldiers burst into the home of the Mortara family. By order of the cardinal, they have come to take Edgardo, their seven-year-old son. The child had been secretly baptized by his nurse as a baby and the papal law is unquestionable: he must receive a Catholic education. Edgardo’s parents, distraught, will do anything to get their son back. Supported by public opinion and the international Jewish community, the Mortaras’ struggle quickly take a political dimension. But the Church and the Pope will not agree to return the child, to consolidate an increasingly wavering power.

Marco Bellocchio was born in Piacenza in 1939. In 1959 he broke off his study of philosophy at the Catholic University of Milan and enrolled at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome. Between 1961 and 1962 he made the short films Abbasso lo zio, La colpa e la pena, and Ginepro fatto uomo. He then moved to London, where he attended the Slade School of Fine Arts. His debut feature film, I pugni in tasca (Fists in the Pocket), won an award at Locarno in 1965 and brought him international recognition. In 2011 he received the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice International Film Festival. His work has been the subject of dozens of retrospectives around the world, including at MoMA (New York) in 2014 to commemorate his 50-years in filmmaking at that time, at the 43rd Festival International du Film de la Rochelle, and in 2018 at the British Film Institute (London).