Martin Scorsese Announces Documentary Featuring Pope Francis' Final Interview
Martin Scorsese will release Aldeas – A New Story, a full-lengthy documentary film featuring Pope Francis' 'final in-depth on-camera interview for cinema.'
The film will reflect on the work of Scholas Occurrentes, a non-profit, global education project founded by Pope Francis in 2013. Part of the project has been cultivating filmmaking in communities around the world to help create 'the culture of encounter from the peripheries, gathering together the beauty of human diversity, and fostering unity in a divided world.' Aldeas – A New Story will feature short narrative films made in Indonesia, the Gambia, and Italy.
More from Rolling Stone
John Oliver Slams RFK Jr.: 'Clearly in Way Over His Worm-Riddled Head'
Pope Francis' Funeral Draws 250,000 Mourners to the Vatican
Happening Now: How to Watch Pope Francis Funeral Livestream Online
Produced by Aldeas Scholas Films in association with Scorsese's Sikelia Productions and Massive Owl Productions, the film will intertwine the short films with Pope Francis' interviews with Scorsese during a return to his ancestral hometown in Sicily.
'Aldeas is an extremely poetic and very constructive project because it goes to the roots of what human life is, human sociability, human conflicts… the essence of a life's journey,' Pope Francis said in a statement before his death in April.
Scorsese added, 'Now, more than ever, we need to talk to each other, listen to one another cross-culturally. One of the best ways to accomplish this is by sharing the stories of who we are, reflected from our personal lives and experiences. It helps us understand and value how each of us sees the world. It was important to Pope Francis for people across the globe to exchange ideas with respect while also preserving their cultural identity, and cinema is the best medium to do that.'
A press release notes, 'By empowering communities to tell their own stories and preserve their cultural legacies, the feature documentary stands as a testament to the enduring belief that creativity is not only a means of expression but a path to hope and transformation. The short films themselves will ultimately premiere in newly established local cinemas, serving as lasting hubs for cultural expression and education.'
Aldeas – A New Story was produced by Scorsese along with Teresa Leveratto, Ezequiel del Corral, and Alfonso Gomez-Rejon. It was executive produced by Lisa Frechette, Romilda de Luca, Ariel Tcach, and Ariel Broitman. It was directed by Clare Tavernor and Johnny Shipley, and produced by Massive Owl Productions' Amy Foster. Cinematographers Ellen Kuras and Salvatore Totino also contributed to the film.
Scorsese met with Pope Francis several times over the years. The filmmaker used their conversations to help inform his films The Last Temptation of Christ and Silence. He paid tribute to Francis following his death, saying, 'He was, in every way, a remarkable human being. He acknowledged his own failings. He radiated wisdom. He radiated goodness. He had an ironclad commitment to the good. He knew in his soul that ignorance was a terrible plague on humanity. So he never stopped learning.'
He added, 'The loss for me runs deep — I was lucky enough to know him, and I will miss his presence and his warmth. The loss for the world is immense. But he left a light behind, and it can never be extinguished.'
A release date for the film has not been announced, but Aldeas Scholas Films noted on Instagram that it is coming 'soon.'
Best of Rolling Stone
The 50 Best 'Saturday Night Live' Characters of All Time
Denzel Washington's Movies Ranked, From Worst to Best
70 Greatest Comedies of the 21st Century
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
14-06-2025
- Yahoo
AJ Francis Reacts To Surprise WWE NXT Return
AJ Francis made a surprise appearance at this week's episode of WWE NXT, and reacted hilariously to it. Francis joined KC Navarro in ambushing Mike Santana this week on NXT, in a measure of revenge after Santana attacked the pair on TNA iMPACT. In the NXT match, Francis and Navarro cost Santana a shot at the TNA World Championship and helped Trick Williams retain his title. Advertisement The moment came as a surprise to fans watching. For Francis, it was his first time on WWE-branded TV since 2023. It was also his first NXT appearance since 2021. In a post on X, Francis shared the iconic meme of Idris Elba's Stringer Bell from The Wire, telling fans that he was 'back up.' 'I want you to put the word out there that we back up. You understand me? We back up,' Bell said in the Season 1, Episode 13 titled 'Sentencing.' The return was Francis' first appearance in NXT since he was under WWE contract as Top Dolla, part of the Hit Row stable. It's currently unclear whether or not Francis will appear in any future WWE content. However, the fact that TNA and WWE are now connected seems to suggest it's much more likely. What did you think? Were you shocked by AJ Francis' return? Do you hope he shows up to even more WWE shows? Let us know in the comments below. Advertisement READ MORE: AJ Francis Makes First WWE NXT Appearance In Four Years The post AJ Francis Reacts To Surprise WWE NXT Return appeared first on Wrestlezone.
Yahoo
14-06-2025
- Yahoo
‘Odd Taxi's' Baku Kinoshita on His Melancholic Feature Debut ‘The Last Blossom,' Premiering in Annecy
There's a deep melancholy emanating from 'The Last Blossom,' Baku Kinoshita's anime feature, playing in competition at this year's Annecy Animation Festival. Kinoshita's directorial debut tells the story of Minoru Akutsu, a former yakuza dying in a solitary prison cell after a life sentence. His only company is a potted balsam flower. The filmmaker puts a whimsical twist on a rather dark tale by having that flower converse with Akutsu, who tells it the story of his life before imprisonment. The flower is animated with expressivity and liveliness, speaking to Akutsu and questioning why he didn't take certain paths, as if his own conscience were talking back to him. More from Variety Sentient Acorns, Badass Grandmas and Underwater Knights Feature Among MIFA's 2025 Feature Pitches Key Latin America Animation Titles to Come Under the Spotlight at Annecy-MIFA's La Liga Focus 'Edmond and Lucy' Returns With Season 2 From MIAM! Animation: Feature Adaptation in Development Variety spoke to Kinoshita about the adjustments of making a first feature following the film's screening at the festival. When 'Odd Taxi' came out, many people compared it to Martin Scorsese's work. I wondered what character dramas you had in mind for 'The Last Blossom.' A friend told me it reminded them of Takeshi Kitano. Exactly that. I love Scorsese and Takeshi Kitano has been a big, big influence on me, and so I guess with this, yeah, I was influenced by [Kitano]'s worldview and the way he structures his stories, the way the shots are pieced together. With Takeshi Kitano's films, you might have a blue sky and lovely sunny sky and some beautiful greenery, and then behind the bushes someone's being murdered, 'cause it doesn't matter what the weather's like or if someone's being murdered. It gives you a sense of truth or reality. It's quite a sorrowful story. Why did you want to tell it? I like this idea of finding release from something restraining you psychologically. It was the same in 'Odd Taxi' and in 'The Last Blossom,' and I got to share that with the screenwriter [Kazuya Konomoto] as well. So, while this film is about a yakuza, the heart of the story is showing the life of someone who's kind of gone off the rails in society. So yes, his job is being a yakuza, but I wanted to focus on his life and, you know, the space that he lives in, how he talks to his family, what his interests are. The animation is very reserved; in much of the film, there's a lot of stillness, but here you have this character of a very animated balsam flower. Since the rest of the film is more realistic in tone, I wanted to ask what inspired you to have this kind of character. I wanted the flower to be the opposite character to Akutsu. I thought it would be an attractive contrast if I made this huge gap between their characters. Well, maybe it's obvious, but Akutsu doesn't change shape or take different forms; he's very quiet, whereas the flower is funny and flexible and has a lot of freedom, very animated, as you say. I thought the freer I made the flower, the bigger the contrast with Akutsu, and the more his particular characteristics would stand out, which in turn makes the characteristics of the flower more obvious. And so for me, it was very important to create the atmosphere of the film by making the flower very elastic. Speaking of that atmosphere, I remember in your work-in-progress session from last year you spoke about the film being about 'stillness, movement and stillness' in its rhythm, and I wanted to ask your thoughts on the most important way of creating that rhythm. I think – and this is sort of instinctive – but you'll see that after there's a really still scene, sometimes I'd put in a burst of action without anything in between. So just quiet, quiet, and then action. I've done that on a few occasions throughout the film, to stop the audience getting… bored? That's intentional, and it's also kind of instinctive, but it's very important, I think, for the rhythm of the film. Zooming out a little bit, were there any major adjustments from directing a series to directing a feature? A film is just much shorter, and that means that you can focus much more on every single shot, which makes it feel like you're doing something worth doing, because you can put so much energy into the quality that you're creating. Was there a moment during the 'The Last Blossom' production that made you realize that? Well, with this film, I checked every single frame. All the background art, all the character movement, every inch of every frame I checked myself. So it was just a different level of detail in the checking that I did, a different quality and a different quantity. 'The Last Blossom' is grounded and original. In animation, it's often difficult to get an original drama, let alone one this understated, off the ground. Well, I do feel that I was very, very lucky to get the opportunity to make an original animation like this. I've always wanted to make animation that doesn't exist in Japan or hasn't existed in Japan in the past. I also thought that I had a chance with this and that there was probably someone out there who wanted to see this film. Going back to the process of making the film, you spoke before about referring to anime from the '80s in terms of the tone of the sequences set in the past. Could you discuss how you went about that? For example, with the background arts, I used vivid, close-to-primary colors. I wanted to rely as little as possible on filming effects, so with the background colors I referenced films like – well, it wasn't from that long ago – but 'Lilo and Stitch' and its use of strong color. A lot of this process sounds like you wanted to be quite restrained in the techniques you're using, you wanted to be economical and straightforward. I can imagine that there's the temptation to keep adding elements. It's tricky for me. Trying a whole bunch of different things is quite risky. My philosophy is to try not to overreach, to make the most beautiful thing I can within my abilities. I did get told off quite a bit from the team for changing things partway, though. For example, after I'd drawn Akutsu's face quite a bit, it gradually got more refined, and I quite liked the way it changed, so then I went back to the beginning and said we had to change him from the beginning. Because this film runs on a theme that's so personal to you, what were you hoping an audience would take away from it? This idea of being released from something that's holding you in. I think, to put it another way, quite simply, it's change, and I see value in people changing. For example, if you have a boy at school who's really shy, really inward-looking, and then the next day he manages to say 'hello.' There's change. It's the same idea that I'm getting at – the opportunity for huge richness, which applies to everybody. No matter how small the change is. However small the change, I think it's beautiful and worthwhile. Best of Variety New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week 'Harry Potter' TV Show Cast Guide: Who's Who in Hogwarts? 25 Hollywood Legends Who Deserve an Honorary Oscar
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Yahoo
Martin Scorsese Celebrates U.S. Immigrants at Taormina: ‘With the Exception of Native Americans, We're All Either Immigrants, Children of Immigrants or Descendants of Immigrants'
Martin Scorsese played up his Sicilian roots and the impact of waves of immigration on the United States as he received a lifetime achievement award Thursday evening at the Taormina Film Festival. 'With the exception of Native Americans, we're all either immigrants, children of immigrants or descendants of immigrants,' Scorsese said from the stage of Taormina's Ancient Greek Theatre on a balmy evening with Sicily's Mt. Etna volcano in the backdrop. More from Variety Martin Scorsese in Taormina on His Sicilian Heritage: Growing up 'I Was Really Living in a Sicilian Village. It Just Happened to Be Downtown Manhattan' Martin Scorsese's 'The Saints' Gets Second Season at Fox Nation Michael Douglas Feted by Taormina as Fest Kicks Off: 'I Am Touched Now When I Realize That Between My Father and I, We Made Over 150 Movies in the Span of 80 Years' 'The country is very young. It's 250 years old, which is nothing in terms of world history. We're learning. We're just crawling. We haven't begun yet to walk or talk.' In an emotional speech, Scorsese recalled being a 5-year-old with his family as they watched Roberto Rossellini's 'Paisá' and for the first time hearing from the TV screen the same Sicilian dialect his immigrant grandparents and parents spoke in New York. He recalled his family gathering to watch the film and talking directly to the people that were on the screen. 'It was there in that room, that night, that I had a calling to make movies, and to touch people in the same way that this film touched us that night. So it is Sicily that helped draw me to cinema and cinema drew me to Sicily,' he said. In presenting the award, Taormina artistic director Tiziana Rocca praised Scorsese for being 'the heart of cinema for 50 years' and underlined his work in preserving and popularizing cinema. In his speech Scorsese, 82, also paid tribute to another Hollywood director with Sicilian roots, Frank Capra, citing Capra's description of filmmaking as an addiction to which the cure is only to make more films. Earlier in the day, the Oscar-winning director spoke to Variety about several projects which have brought him to Sicily, including a documentary about marine archeology based on the work of underwater archaeologist Lisa Briggs off the Sicilian coast. Scorsese's family trace their roots back to Ciminna and Polizzi Generosa, small Sicilian villages which he visited last October. Scorsese, citing Capra's prolificness, also hinted at another work for which he has started scouting locations in Sicily which he intends to shoot once the filming of the documentary is complete. 'I wonder, where I would be without Italian cinema,' Scorsese said, concluding his speech. 'The debt I owe to Italian cinema and the people that made it and are continuing to make it, is really incalculable. I'll never stop talking about it, to the entire world, wherever I go and I thank you for this wonderful honor to be here tonight.' 'Thank you for bringing me back home.' Best of Variety New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week 'Harry Potter' TV Show Cast Guide: Who's Who in Hogwarts? 25 Hollywood Legends Who Deserve an Honorary Oscar
