Martin Scorsese presents the new film on Jesus: “I have responded to the Pope’s appeal to artists”

Martin Scorsese is turning his attention to a new film about Jesus, the director said during a visit to Italy after bringing his The flower moon killers at the Cannes Film Festival.

“I responded to the pope’s call to artists the only way I know how: by imagining and writing a script for a film about Jesus,” Scorsese told Antonio Spadaro, editorial director of the Jesuit magazine Catholic civilization (Catholic civilization). “And I’m about to start doing that.”

As for existing films, Scorsese has spoken of his admiration for the immediacy of Jesus in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s film The Gospel according to St. Matthewhis experience with and the meaning of his The Last Temptation of Christas well as how the making of Silence it represented the next step in his search for Jesus. In the final moments of the interview, Scorsese became increasingly personal: he spoke of his experience with grace and mercy, and of the presence of violence in his life as well as in his films.

The conversation between the American filmmaker and the director of Civiltà Cattolica was the focal point of the last day of a conference held from 25 to 27 May at Villa Malta in Rome on the theme “The global aesthetics of the Catholic imagination”. The meeting was organized by the Jesuit magazine in collaboration with Georgetown University. It brought together more than 40 poets, storytellers, screenwriters and filmmakers from around the world who identify as Catholics or find Catholicism to have been a formative aspect of their artistic development.

On Tuesday, Scorsese will host the “Carta Bianca” event at the Casa del Cinema in Rome, presenting a special selection he curated by pairing his films with the classics that inspired him. The exhibition, created in collaboration with the Cineteca di Bologna, is open until 4 June. Tuesday’s appointment is at 9 pm at the Ettore Scola Theater, a large open-air arena in the Villa Borghese park in Rome. Admission is free, subject to availability. The event will feature the screening of Bad streetsone of the director’s signature masterpieces.