You might think Shia Labeouf portraying a 20th-century Italian saint under the direction of perpetual bad-boy expat Abel Ferrara is a pretty strange prospect. But that’s just the iceberg tip of the oddities in “Padre Pio,” which, despite the American star’s casting in the title role, often appears uninterested in its own venerated ostensible subject.
Instead, much of this awkward English-language period piece focuses on peasants’ struggle to overthrow padrone control just after the First World War. Depicting that conflict often feels beyond the modest production’s scale — and, in any case, is never meaningfully connected to the angsty histrionics of Labeouf, who seems to be in his own separate, indulgent, semi-improvised movie. Though coherent relative to Ferrara’s last narrative feature, the impenetrable espionage tale “Zeroes and Ones,” this eccentric misfire will likely puzzle fans of his past cult favorites, while flummoxing Catholic viewers who expect straightforward religious uplift.
Instead, much of this awkward English-language period piece focuses on peasants’ struggle to overthrow padrone control just after the First World War. Depicting that conflict often feels beyond the modest production’s scale — and, in any case, is never meaningfully connected to the angsty histrionics of Labeouf, who seems to be in his own separate, indulgent, semi-improvised movie. Though coherent relative to Ferrara’s last narrative feature, the impenetrable espionage tale “Zeroes and Ones,” this eccentric misfire will likely puzzle fans of his past cult favorites, while flummoxing Catholic viewers who expect straightforward religious uplift.
- 6/2/2023
- by Dennis Harvey
- Variety Film + TV
Abel Ferrara’s Padre Pio is a fusion of two souls, each as rough-hewn and fragmentary as the other. Set in the immediate aftermath of World War I in the Italian village of San Giovanni Rotondo and filmed on location, it’s partly a biopic about the Catholic saint Pio of Pietrelcina (Shia Labeouf), for whom every waking moment seems a dark night of the soul. But it’s also a dramatization of the struggle between the landed gentry and the soldiers who return disillusioned from the war, culminating in violence after a stolen election.
Ferrara and co-writer Maurzio Braucci, instead of treating Catholicism and Marxism as antagonistic, find resonance in their iconography, their shared valorization of the downtrodden, and the zeal of their adherents—as well as their crises of faith. It isn’t heresy to say that Padre Pio is a spiritual successor to Pier Paolo Pasolini’s The Gospel According to St.
Ferrara and co-writer Maurzio Braucci, instead of treating Catholicism and Marxism as antagonistic, find resonance in their iconography, their shared valorization of the downtrodden, and the zeal of their adherents—as well as their crises of faith. It isn’t heresy to say that Padre Pio is a spiritual successor to Pier Paolo Pasolini’s The Gospel According to St.
- 5/30/2023
- by William Repass
- Slant Magazine
"It feels like a sin to question these things, it feels like a sin to be angry with the Lord." Gravitas Ventures has revealed an official trailer for Padre Pio, a new film from American director Abel Ferrara, who now lives and works in Italy. This premiered at the Venice Days sidebar of the Venice Film Festival last year (did anyone even see it?) and opens in the US this June. This biopic from Ferrara follows Roman Catholic Saint Padre Pio in his early years. At the end of World War I, Padre Pio begins his ministry at a remote monastery in southern Italy. Soon, his charisma and storied visions bring him fame. Shia Labeouf stars alongside Cristina Chiriac, Marco Leonardi, Asia Argento, Vincenzo Crea, Luca Lionello, Brando Pacitto, Stella Mastrantonio, and Salvatore Ruocco. Some may remember that this role "saved" Labeouf's life, as he claimed in an interview last...
- 5/9/2023
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
Exclusive: Gravitas Ventures has nabbed North American rights to the Shia Labeouf-led drama Padre Pio from filmmaker Abel Ferrara, slating it for a day-and-date release on June 2nd.
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In the film penned by Maurizio Braucci and Ferrara, which world premiered at last year’s Venice Film Festival, it’s the end of World War I and the young Italian soldiers are making their way back to San Giovanni Rotondo, a land of poverty, historic violence and the ironclad rule of the church and its wealthy landowners. Families are desperate; the men are broken, but victorious.
Related Story Neon Acquires Domestic Rights To Anne Hathaway Sundance Movie ‘Eileen’ Related Story Gravitas Ventures Acquires Sophie Lane Curtis Drama 'On Our Way' Starring Micheál Richardson, Vanessa Redgrave And Jordana Brewster Related Story Jennifer A. Goodman Thriller 'The Unseen' Starring 'Breaking Bad's Rj Mitte Acquired By Gravitas Ventures
In the film penned by Maurizio Braucci and Ferrara, which world premiered at last year’s Venice Film Festival, it’s the end of World War I and the young Italian soldiers are making their way back to San Giovanni Rotondo, a land of poverty, historic violence and the ironclad rule of the church and its wealthy landowners. Families are desperate; the men are broken, but victorious.
- 3/28/2023
- by Matt Grobar
- Deadline Film + TV
First thing’s first, Abel Ferrara’s latest film “Padre Pio” can’t exactly be described as a biographical drama about Francesco Forgione, the Franciscan Capuchin friar whose stigmata and mystical abilities — as well as his ties to, and later rejection of, fascism — garnered him controversy during his lifetime. While Shia Labeouf stars as Pio and the film sometimes features him, Ferrara isn’t much interested in the particulars of his life in any conventional sense. In fact, he spends much of the film’s running time among the exploited agricultural workers of rural southern Italy who embrace socialism as a means to combat their fascist oppressors. Meanwhile, Pio appears in disjointed vignettes contending with his guilt over various personal failings, like his evasion of military service and his numerous past sins.
The bifurcated structure and disregard for biopic conventions are welcome approaches, especially for a provocative stylist like Ferrara,...
The bifurcated structure and disregard for biopic conventions are welcome approaches, especially for a provocative stylist like Ferrara,...
- 9/5/2022
- by Vikram Murthi
- Indiewire
Click here to read the full article.
Of the many questions one might ask when watching Abel Ferrara’s clunky portrayal of the legendary and controversial early 20th-century Italian friar, Padre Pio, the main one has to be: Why, oh why Abel, did you decide to make the movie in English?
Granted, Ferrara probably felt more comfortable working in his native tongue — as likely did Shia Labeouf, who seems fully committed to his pious role, sporting a beard that’s bigger than the Book of Psalms itself. But the Bronx-born director has been living in Rome for a while now, and had he chosen Italian for this story of a priest caught between his alleged healing powers and his visions of Lucifer, between the rise of fascism and a growing communist revolt in a small village, this bungled drama may have seemed a little more credible.
Instead, Ferrera surrounded Labeouf...
Of the many questions one might ask when watching Abel Ferrara’s clunky portrayal of the legendary and controversial early 20th-century Italian friar, Padre Pio, the main one has to be: Why, oh why Abel, did you decide to make the movie in English?
Granted, Ferrara probably felt more comfortable working in his native tongue — as likely did Shia Labeouf, who seems fully committed to his pious role, sporting a beard that’s bigger than the Book of Psalms itself. But the Bronx-born director has been living in Rome for a while now, and had he chosen Italian for this story of a priest caught between his alleged healing powers and his visions of Lucifer, between the rise of fascism and a growing communist revolt in a small village, this bungled drama may have seemed a little more credible.
Instead, Ferrera surrounded Labeouf...
- 9/2/2022
- by Jordan Mintzer
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
In “The Time of Indifference,” Italian filmmaker Leonardo Guerra Seràgnoli adapts the 1929 novel by renowned author Alberto Moravia about a once wealthy family in decline but unable to give up the pretenses of appearance.
Transposed to modern-day Rome, the film retains the novel’s timeless story of a hapless widow whose devious and manipulative lover comes between her and her two increasingly wary children.
For Seràgnoli, the film was a return to the work of a writer he first read in high school. “I think since then Moravia has been with me throughout my life.”
Indeed, in his first film, “Last Summer,” Seràgnoli borrowed elements of Moravia’s 1945 novel “Agostino,” about a 13-year-old boy spending the summer at a seaside resort with his beautiful widowed mother. The film caught the attention of Carmen Llera, the late author’s wife. “She really loved my first film. She contacted me and said,...
Transposed to modern-day Rome, the film retains the novel’s timeless story of a hapless widow whose devious and manipulative lover comes between her and her two increasingly wary children.
For Seràgnoli, the film was a return to the work of a writer he first read in high school. “I think since then Moravia has been with me throughout my life.”
Indeed, in his first film, “Last Summer,” Seràgnoli borrowed elements of Moravia’s 1945 novel “Agostino,” about a 13-year-old boy spending the summer at a seaside resort with his beautiful widowed mother. The film caught the attention of Carmen Llera, the late author’s wife. “She really loved my first film. She contacted me and said,...
- 12/3/2020
- by Ed Meza
- Variety Film + TV
Gli Indifferenti
It’s been well over a decade since a filmmaker has attempted an new adaptation of Italian author Alberto Moravia, whose novels provided the basis for such classics as De Sica’s Two Women (1960), Godard’s Contempt (1963) and Bertolucci’s The Conformist (1970), among many others. For his third feature, Leonardo Guerra Seràgnoli remounts Moravia’s The Time of Indifference, assembling a formidable cast with Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Giovanna Mezzorgiorno, Edoardo Pesce, Beatrice Granno and Vincenzo Crea. The title is produced by Marco Cohen, Fabrizio Donvito, Benedetto Habib and Daniel Campos Pavoncelli with Gian Filippo Corticelli (favored Dp of Ferzan Ozpetek) lensing.…...
It’s been well over a decade since a filmmaker has attempted an new adaptation of Italian author Alberto Moravia, whose novels provided the basis for such classics as De Sica’s Two Women (1960), Godard’s Contempt (1963) and Bertolucci’s The Conformist (1970), among many others. For his third feature, Leonardo Guerra Seràgnoli remounts Moravia’s The Time of Indifference, assembling a formidable cast with Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Giovanna Mezzorgiorno, Edoardo Pesce, Beatrice Granno and Vincenzo Crea. The title is produced by Marco Cohen, Fabrizio Donvito, Benedetto Habib and Daniel Campos Pavoncelli with Gian Filippo Corticelli (favored Dp of Ferzan Ozpetek) lensing.…...
- 1/1/2020
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Valeria Bruni Tedeschi has been cast as a morally and economically bankrupt matron in Italian director Leonardo Guerra Seràgnoli’s movie adaptation of “The Time of Indifference,” author Alberto Moravia’s scathing critique of the Fascist-era bourgeoisie.
Seràgnoli, a young helmer known for “Last Summer” and “Likemeback” – which bowed at the Rome and Locarno fests, respectively – has started shooting his contemporary take on the widely translated novel in Rome. First published in 1929, when Moravia was 21, “Gli Indifferenti” captured the middle-class malaise of its time and established Moravia as a world-class writer.
The story sees members of an upper-crust Rome family reacting to a financial crisis that is undermining their social status. Mariagrazia, played by Bruni Tedeschi, is a widow with an unscrupulous lover, Leo, played by Edoardo Pesce (“Dogman”). She has two children by her dead husband: Carla, whom Leo has the hots for, and Michele, who is aware that...
Seràgnoli, a young helmer known for “Last Summer” and “Likemeback” – which bowed at the Rome and Locarno fests, respectively – has started shooting his contemporary take on the widely translated novel in Rome. First published in 1929, when Moravia was 21, “Gli Indifferenti” captured the middle-class malaise of its time and established Moravia as a world-class writer.
The story sees members of an upper-crust Rome family reacting to a financial crisis that is undermining their social status. Mariagrazia, played by Bruni Tedeschi, is a widow with an unscrupulous lover, Leo, played by Edoardo Pesce (“Dogman”). She has two children by her dead husband: Carla, whom Leo has the hots for, and Michele, who is aware that...
- 9/26/2019
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
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