Scorsese is working on a documentary about Pope Francis

RTÉ News​

01-05-2025

A new Martin Scorsese documentary is promising to bring the "final dream" of the late Pope Francis to life.
The film Aldeas - A New Story will delve into the educational movement Scholas Occurrentes, founded by Francis in 2013 as an organisation for school pupils to carry out projects.
The pontiff died on Easter Monday aged 88, with the spiritual leader's funeral taking place last Saturday, and tributes remembered him as an advocate of climate change action and a more liberal Catholic Church.
Production company Aldeas Scholas Films, part of Scholas Occurrentes, called the movie a "final dream of Pope Francis" and a "powerful new documentary", and said it would feature conversations between Oscar-winning director Scorsese and the late pontiff.
A statement added: "Rooted in the Culture of Encounter, the film brings together diverse communities from around the world to tell their own stories, celebrate their identities, and preserve their cultural legacy through cinema."
The production is in association with Scorsese's company Sikelia Productions and Massive Owl Productions, co-founded by Victoria Brooks who has worked on the likes of Downton Abbey and Peaky Blinders.
Scorsese, 82, said: "Now, more than ever, we need to talk to each other, listen to one another cross-culturally.
"One of the best ways to accomplish this is by sharing the stories of who we are, reflected from our personal lives and experiences.
"It helps us understand and value how each of us sees the world.
"It was important to Pope Francis for people across the globe to exchange ideas with respect while also preserving their cultural identity, and cinema is the best medium to do that.
Scholas Occurrentes, with more than one million participants from around the world, is aimed at creating "a global network of schools who work together to give young people a voice and to become active agents of change in their communities".
Scorsese, whose celluloid CV includes Goodfellas, Taxi Driver and The Wolf Of Wall Street, previously met Francis in September 2023 in an audience of public figures, and in 2016 after the screening of his film Silence, about Jesuit priests trying to spread Christianity in 17th century Japan.
The director is also behind the music documentaries George Harrison: Living In The Material World, Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story, Beatles '64 and The Last Waltz.
Francis was not one to shy away from the limelight either, appearing in the Netflix series Stories Of A Generation, Leonardo DiCaprio's climate change documentary Before The Flood, and the 2018 film Pope Francis: A Man Of His Word.