Benedetta (2021)
Director: Paul Verhoeven Run Time: 127 min. Rating: NR Release Year: 2021
Starring: Charlotte Rampling, Daphne Patakia, Lambert Wilson, Olivier Rabourdin, Virginie Efira
Country: France, Netherlands
Language: French
About the film:
Official Selection of the 2021 Cannes Film Festival. Based on a true story, a 17th-century nun becomes entangled in a forbidden lesbian affair with a novice. But it is Benedetta’s shocking religious visions that threaten to shake the Church to its core.
“a grand summation of all the director’s ideas about eroticism, rationality, moral ambiguity, and faith. At once tongue-in-cheek and entirely serious”
—Ben Kenigsberg for Roger Ebert
About the filmmaker:
Born in Amsterdam, director and screenwriter Paul Verhoeven is a master of boundary-pushing erotic thrillers. Perhaps most familiar to audiences in the United States for his iconic sci-fi films RoboCop, Total Recall and Starship Troopers, Verhoeven has also won prizes at Venice and Toronto, and he’s been nominated multiple times for the Palme d’Or at Cannes. He directed Turkish Delight, voted the Best Dutch Film of the Century by the Netherlands Film Festival in 1999. Second place went to his film Soldier of Orange. His other festival favorites include The 4th Man, Basic Instinct, Black Book and the César Award-winning Elle.
With a screenplay by Verhoeven and David Birke, Benedetta is loosely based on Judith C. Brown’s 1986 non-fiction book “Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy.”
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