The Bologna Kidnapping – Robbed in the Name of the Pope is now available for home cinema. The thriller tells the true story of one child kidnapped by the Catholic Churchfor which legendary director Steven Spielberg allegedly couldn’t find a suitable young actor for his planned film adaptation and scrapped the project (via Deadline ).
In 2023, however, a highly acclaimed Italian adaptation of the theme by Marco Bellocchio was successfully released in cinemas, which you can also bring to your home cinema since March 21, 2024: on Blu-ray * and on DVD * on Amazon, as well as for a long time as a digital purchase and rental title * on Prime Video.
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Steven Spielberg canceled: That’s what The Bologna Kidnapping is about
In 1858, the little boy Edgardo Mortara (Enea Sala) is killed in Bologna by the Pope’s soldiers torn from his Jewish family, as he is said to have been baptized at birth. At the behest of the Vatican, Edgardo is to be raised to Catholicism because papal law requires it.
The The boy’s parents are fighting for his release, supported by the public and the international Jewish community, which means that the whole thing also has large political implications. But the church and Pope Pius IX (Paolo Pierobon) do not agree to the return and want to consolidate their increasingly crumbling power.
The kidnapping drama is so worth seeing
At the film’s premiere in 2023, Moviepilot editor-in-chief Jenny Jecke described The Bologna Kidnapping – Robbed in the Name of the Pope, which at the time was under the English title Kidnapped, as one shocking film adaptation with ambiguity as its trump card. The film’s great feat is its ability to capture the main character’s inner life and contradictory feelings in images.
The FILMSTARTS review gave it a solid 3 out of 5 stars. Accordingly, The Bologna Kidnapping was staged with great bombast by the legendary Italian director Marco Bellochio, which above all stylistically impressive be. On an emotional level, the film mostly remains distant and cold, the conclusion says.
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