Kidnapped

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…

Bellocchio was born in Piacenza in 1939. In 1959 he abandoned philosophy studies 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 garnered 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 then fifty years of filmmaking, at the 43rd Festival International du Film de la Rochelle, and in 2018 at the British Film Institute (London).

In 2016 Fai bei sogni (Sweet Dreams) was the opening film of the Director’s Fortnight at the Cannes Festival. In 2019 Il Traditore (The Traitor) was In Competition at Cannes; it won seven Silver Ribbons and six Donatellos.

Bellocchio has been president of the Cineteca di Bologna since 2014.

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