05/09/2022 - VENICE 2022: Gianfranco Rosi assembles unseen archive material documenting the travels of Pope Francis in 53 countries, where Bergoglio addressed the burning issues of war and human rights

After exploring the effects of war in the Middle East in his recent work Notturno [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Gianfranco Rosi
film profile], the tragedy of refugees and migrants disembarking on the island of Lampedusa from North Africa by way of Fire At Sea [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Gianfranco Rosi
film profile] (awarded the Golden Bear in Berlin in 2016), homeless communities in the USA in Below Sea Level, and a Mexican drug cartel in El Sicario - Room 164 [+see also:
trailer
film profile], Italian documentary-maker Gianfranco Rosi is returning once again to the issues of conflict and human rights in In viaggio [+see also:
trailer
interview: Gianfranco Rosi
film profile], screened out of competition in the 79th Venice Film Festival, but this time he’s tackling them from a new, alternative and frankly unique viewpoint: that of Pope Francis.

In 2013, having barely been elected pope, Bergoglio travelled to Lampedusa, where Rosi also travelled two years later to shoot. This would be the first of 37 journeys to 53 countries for the Pope. In a huge undertaking, which involved assembling film footage and material from the historical archives and from the Vatican’s archives, new scenes shot ad hoc, and even brief snippets from his own films, Rosi reconstructed a coherent journey – from a secular perspective - of peace and fraternity as mapped out by the head of the Catholic church.

The documentary opens and closes with an extreme close-up of the Pope, whose head is bowed. Then comes the sound of a boat asking for rescue, which is why the Pope is in Lampedusa speaking about the globalisation of indifference which has stripped us of our capacity to cry. Next, we see him in Brazil in 2013, the first pontiff from the American continent meeting an enthusiastic crowd of believers in the slums. And once again, he speaks of a culture of selfishness and individualism, urging solidarity. In Cuba in 2015, we see him silhouetted against a gigantic image of Che Guevara. He can speak his own tongue here. In the USA in 2015, he speaks of Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Dorothy Day (the activist who fought for workers’ rights and those of the poor) and Trappist Thomas Merton, and he entreaties the government to stop the arms trade.

In Chile, he explains that dignity is contagious, and when people ask him about the Bishop Juan Barros who covered up sexual abuse of minors, provoking uproar which was placated by the carabineros, he speaks of unsubstantiated slander, before making a U-turn and apologising. In the Philippines in 2015, he acknowledged the disaster of Storm Jolanda. He’s drawn to people who are truly suffering, from poverty or denied rights. How do you choose your destinations? people ask him. "I listen to my advisers, I pray, I reflect, and then the decision comes from inside of me, spontaneously, like a mature fruit. Some destinations are difficult, others are easier”.

One such tricky destination was the Central African Republic, also in 2015, where he was welcomed to the central mosque in Bangui surrounded by the United Nation’s armoured vehicles. In Nairobi, Kenya, he denounced a failure to recognised immigrants as refugees. “These are stories, lives, dreams. We cannot remain indifferent”. In 2014, we see him in Israel and in Palestine, which has been occupied for 66 years, in front of the wall erected by the Israeli government. In Jerusalem he shakes Kiril’s hand, re-establishing first contact since 1054, the year of the great schism. And then he’s in Mexico in 2016, talking about people trafficking, in Armenia also in 2016, mentioning the word “genocide”, which provokes the ire of Erdogan, in the United Arab Emirates, Madagascar and Japan in 2019, Iraq in 2021, and Canada in 2022, where he apologises for the Church’s policy of uprooting and assimilating the indigenous population. Faced with the massacre in Mosul, he retorts “Justified wars? All wars are born out of an injustice”.

Fabrizio Federico’s editing organises Bergoglio’s various speeches and reflections produced during his travels by theme: poverty, nature, migration, the condemnation of all wars and solidarity. The musical excerpts, meanwhile, are excellent, selected in consultation with Ambrogio Sparagna who drew from the various countries’ traditions.

In viaggio is a production by Gianfranco Rosi’s 21Uno Film and Stemal Entertainment alongside RAI Cinema. International distribution is managed by The Match Factory,

(Translated from Italian)