The Jewish Federation of Madison is a proud sponsor of a series of Jewish films at the 2024 Wisconsin Film Festival.

Film: Kidnapped
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Synopsis: The latest from legendary Italian director Marco Bellocchio, Kidnapped unveils the scandalous true story of Edgardo Mortara, a six-year-old Jewish child abducted from his family in 19th-century Bologna under the Pope's decree. Believing young Edgardo was baptized in secret as an infant, the church uses their enormous power to separate the boy from his anguished family and raise him as a Catholic in Rome under the watchful eye of Pius IX (played with a disturbed intensity by Paolo Pierobon). With operatic fervor, Bellocchio's narrative follows the relentless struggle of the child’s parents, echoing the outcry of the international Jewish community and Italian liberals alike. Edgardo Mortara's harrowing journey – also the subject of an unrealized Steven Spielberg-Tony Kushner collaboration - becomes a battleground against the Vatican's power. Bellocchio, whose filmmaking career began over 60 years ago, is not interested in mere historical reenactment. The director transcends dramatic convention, using chiaroscuro lighting to delve into existential turmoil as Mortara grapples with his forced conversion and identity as an adult. Kidnapped 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” (Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian).

Presented with support from Jewish Federation of Madison and UW-Madison Mosse/Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies