Marco Bellocchio’s Cannes Movie ‘Kidnapped’, About The Catholic Church’s Abduction Of Jewish Boy Edgardo Mortara, Sets U.S. Release Date

EXCLUSIVE: Cohen Media Group‘s well-received Cannes, TIFF and NYFF 2023 drama Kidnapped: The Abduction Of Edgardo Mortara is set to be released stateside on May 24.

The latest from respected Italian filmmaker Belloccio debuted in Competition at Cannes. It reconstructs the true story of Edgardo Mortara, a young Jewish boy who was kidnapped by the Papal state and forcibly raised as a Christian in 19th-Century Italy.

The Mortara case was an Italian cause cèlèbre that captured the attention of much of Europe and North America in the 1850s and 1860s.

The movie has made $2M at the Italian box office and was nominated for a César in France and won an Italian Golden Globe award.

Deadline’s critic Stephanie Bunbury said of the feature: “The sense of the spectacular infuses the whole film, not just the grand interiors and rituals of the church services. Even in the Mortaras’ apartment, the director gives his pictorial space the depth, dramatic angles and chiaroscuro lighting of Baroque painting.”

Pic was produced by Beppe Caschetto and Simone Gattoni at IBC Movie and Kavac Film with Rai Cinema, in co-production with Ad Vitam Production in France and The Match Factory in Germany. The film was also backed by Canal+, Ciné+, Bayerischer Rundfunk and Arte France Cinéma, in association with Arte and Film-und Medienstiftung NRW. It also received support from MIC Ministero della Cultura and the Emilia-Romagna region through the Emilia–Romagna Film Commission.