The Deacon's Bench
Actor Dario Grandinetti (photo: Prensa TV Pública via Wikipedia)
From Variety:
A battle between rival Pope Francis biopics has just kicked off, with shooting starting this week in Buenos Aires on two feature films about Jorge Mario Bergoglio, both toplining Argentine A-list actors as the Jesuit priest and tracing the path to his groundbreaking papacy.
Thesp Rodrigo de la Serna, who played alongside Gael Garcia Bernal in Walter Salles’s “The Motorcycle Diaries,” is playing the former Buenos Aires bishop, a son of Italian immigrants, in Italian director Daniele Luchetti’s “Call Me Francesco.” This roughly $12 million pic is being fully financed by prominent Italian producer Piero Valsecchi, who is planning a theatrical and a made-for-TV version. Luchetti’s credits include past Cannes fest contenders “Il Portaborse,” “My Brother Is an Only Child,” and “Our Life.”
Dario Grandinetti, who stars in Argentina’s current foreign-language Oscar contender “Wild Tales” and also appeared in Pedro Almodovar’s “Talk to Her,” is the star in “Francisco,” being directed by Argentine vet Beda Docampo Feijoo, known for drama “Camila,” and for romancers “Los amores de Kafka” and “Crazy Loves.” “Francisco” is being co-produced by Buenos Aires-based Pablo Bossi and Spain’s Gloriamundi, while FilmSharks Intl. is handling international sales. Disney will distribute “Francisco” throughout Latin America and in Spain.
Both Francis biopics are being shot in Spanish to tap into their primary audiences in Latin America and Spain, but both also have worldwide distribution ambitions.
Interestingly, the two competing papal pics are also both based on books written by reporters at the same newspaper, Buenos Aires daily La Nacion.
The Italian “Francesco” film is based on bestselling book “Francisco. El Papa de la gente” (Francisco, the People’s Pope) by Evangelina Himitian, La Nacion’s former Vatican correspondent. Producer Valsecchi is producing the Italo pic via his TaoDue shingle, which has close ties to Silvio Berlusconi’s Medusa/Mediaset, which will distribute the film and TV versions in Italy.
Velsecchi is selling his pic internationally himself.
Argentina’s “Francisco” film is based on “Francisco: Life and Revolution,” also a besteller, by La Nacion’s current Rome-based international and Vatican reporter Elisabetta Pique. Published in the U.S. by Loyola Press, Pique’s book has been hailed in Argentina as the most complete portrait of the pope to date.
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