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VENICE 2022 Out of Competition

Gianfranco Rosi • Director of In viaggio

“The Pope 'in viaggio' is a different Pope to the Pope in the Vatican”

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- VENICE 2022: Examining 37 visits over nine years, Gianfranco Rosi depicts an increasingly progressive Pope Francis, facing up to the world and its troubles

Gianfranco Rosi • Director of In viaggio
(© La Biennale di Venezia/Foto ASAC/Giorgio Zucchiatti)

From 600 hours of footage depicting Pope Francis on his various travels around the world over a nine-year period, acclaimed documentary-maker Gianfranco Rosi has created a new work, which also contrasts with his usual methods. In viaggio [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Gianfranco Rosi
film profile
]
was screened at the 79th Venice International Film Festival out of competition.

Cineuropa: In your new film, we see scenes from Lampedusa, where you shot Fire at Sea, and Iraq, where you shot Notturno [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Gianfranco Rosi
film profile
]
. Was In viaggio born out of these works?
Gianfranco Rosi: A bit. A year ago, I was contacted by the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, because the Pope was going to Iraq and they’d seen Notturno and wanted to talk to me. I’d also been contacted before when I made Fire at Sea [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Gianfranco Rosi
film profile
]
, and the Pope wanted to talk to me about migration, which was very important to him. Nine years later, he was going to Iraq. I asked the journalist about the number of trips the Pope has made, and he said 37 over the last nine years. Wow! I’d thought five or six, maybe. And boom! – I got the idea for a film about the Pope’s travels during this time, all those countries, so huge and immense. I already had the perfect title for it: “From Lampedusa to Bagdad”.

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How did you obtain the material, and the Vatican’s trust? And what kind of control did the Vatican stipulate, if any?
I was completely free from any control. They know my work, they trust me, and they gave me the footage – which is actually available online, but I got high resolution without watermark – more than 600 hours’ worth.

How did you put the material together?
It’s like television really, very different from my usual approach and look, but it fascinated me to work with something that wasn’t “mine”. Me and my editor watched the footage and spent months choosing, and I came up with this perfect 40-minute film, which started in Iraq and ended in Lampedusa and was completely crazy and abstract, going from place to place, without structure or chronology, combining the Pope’s different speeches into one monologue – it was very effective, I was quite happy with it. Then the Ukraine war happened, and the Pope went to Malta. I asked the Vatican to come along. There, the Pope broached the topic of the war and became very political. He grabbed headlines and things became quite controversial. So, there I was, with my perfect film, and now this new material, which was impossible to add to my existing structure. So my film was suddenly gone. But then – boom! – I put everything in chronological order, from Lampedusa, to Iraq, to today. And this arc, going from 2013 to 2022, sat just perfectly. By putting it all in this order, the film suddenly developed its own structure.

And a new title too, it would seem.
In viaggio – travelling – references the fact that I only show material from his journeys, and the Pope “in viaggio” is different Pope than the Pope in the Vatican. We’re outside the walls of the Vatican with its 2000 years of politics and procedures and where the Pope is the sovereign leader. Outside, he’s pastoral, delivering guidance rather than dogma. He talks to believers and non-believers, almost becoming secular-political in his point of view.

Being a secular person yourself, how did you find him, both in the editing room and in real life?
I’m very secular, and a non-believer. But I followed him for this year-long process and he moved me. He’s able to ask for forgiveness, not only in the name of the church, but also if he, personally, comes to the wrong conclusion. He’s a different pope – loved as well as hated, I realised. The conservatives find him far too progressive. He blesses the union of two men and their love, saying “Who am I to judge you?” That’s not really politically correct to them. As for wars, there’s no such thing as good versus bad, they’re all taboo to him. He won’t give a defending army his blessing to destroy an attacking force, which has also caused controversy. Somehow, he’s like Gandhi, you know? As a non-believer, he moved me a lot. I try to portray him not as a pope or of the church, but as a good man of good will, facing up to the troubles of this world.

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