Kidnapped: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara

“It’s not surprising that Steven Spielberg wanted to do this story for years, packed as it is with the stuff of childhood peril, an alien world, Jewish heartache, and resilience. But we can celebrate now what [director Marco] Bellocchio, a driven old master, has achieved: a heartfelt thriller of intensity and intimacy in which getting saved looks an awful lot like being lost.” —Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times

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 takes a political dimension. But the Church and the Pope will not agree to return the child, to consolidate an increasingly wavering power.

134 minutes; Italian with English subtitles

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