Vatican lists vision of celluloid heaven

The list also includes Terence Malick’s The Thin Red Line and Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan, but most of the other nominees are low-budget films from Italy, Iran, Serbia and France. The festival committee,following a papal order to harness the mass media, sat through up to 300 films in its quest to find suitable nominees. “It is the content which can indicate the road of peace, of hope, of unity,” said Cardinal Paul Poupard, president of the papal cultural council. Concerned lest viewers be overwhelmed by special effects or star names, the festival aims to emphasise the importance of a film’s message.

The execution of unarmed prisoners in Saving Private Ryan and illicit sex in Shakespeare in Love did not detract from their moral impact, organisers said. “We believe that the cinema can be a great instrument for spreading the values of peace and tolerance in the next millennium,” said one of the organisers, Andrea Piersanti. Screenings, which run until December 9, will be free and open to the public. Day-long seminars by scholars and clerics will be held, including topics such as “Jesus between cinema and film”. Unlike other film festivals, the Vatican’s does not offer prizes. “Given the theme of thefestival, we feel it would be a little embarrassing to award prizes and say that some are better than others,” Piersanti said.

Six of the films are Italian, four are from Hollywood. One, Jesus, is a made-for-television film. Gary Oldman’s “sublime” performance as Pontius Pilate brought viewers to a closer understanding of what happened 2,000 years ago, said Claudio Finiscalde, the festival’s director. “A film like that is so rich compared to American Pie, which is vulgar, stupid and about absolutely nothing. Though of course it’ll make money.”

The committee did not object to box office smashes on principle, but rejected films it considered had been made purely for profit. “Films should be made for culture, too,” said Professor Finiscalde, who teaches film at Rome university. Movies stood a good chance of nomination if the hero or heroine struggled to be humane against daunting odds. Jim Carrey’s character in The Truman Show was hailed for fighting against manipulation by a technologically empoweredmedia.

It was also noted that the intense relationship between a doctor and an impoverished woman in The Power did not become carnal. Bashing the church’s political foes did not win points. Wim Wender’s depiction of Cuban musicians was a masterful portrait of humanity’s need for art, not a polemic against Fidel Castro, Prof Finiscalde said. The festival is part of the Vatican’s warm-up for next year’s jubilee celebrations, when more than 23m pilgrims are expected to flood Rome. Such holy years come every 25 years.

— The Observer News Service