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 baptised 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…
"It is a full-tilt melodrama with the passionate vehemence of Victor Hugo or Charles Dickens, which lays bare an ugly formative episode of Europe’s Catholic church: an affair of antisemitism and child abuse." Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
Italy, France, Germany, 2023
Italian, Hebrew, Latin languages with English subtitles
