On Sunday 14 April at the Cinema delle Provincie, screening of the film “La porta del Cielo” by De Sica and Zavattini

The film festival being held in preparation for the Jubilee Year entitled "Faces and Counterfaces of Hope" begins on Sunday at 9pm at Rome’s Cinema delle Provincie. The opening film is “La porta del Cielo” (1945) directed by Vittorio De Sica and Cesare Zavattini, in its recently restored version made possible by a collaboration between the MAC Foundation, the Cast Research Center of Uninettuno, Officina della Communication, Isacem and Italy’s Cineteca Nazionale. The film will be introduced by Monsignor Dario Viganò, Vice Chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and curator of the restoration.

The film tells the story of a pilgrimage of sick people to the Marian shrine at Loreto. Filmed between March and June 1944, during the Nazi-Fascist occupation of the Italian capital, filming was done in Rome, in the Basilica of St Paul’s Outside the Walls. Monsignor Giovanni Battista Montini, the future Pope Paul VI, who was then Substitute at the Secretariat of State, was also involved in the making of the film. In his diary Zavattini notes: “They would like me [to make] a film of my own, leaving me totally free, I say totally, but the requirement is that the film be based on Christian morality. But who isn't Christian? Christ is at the gates."

Entrance to the cinema for the screening is free, and available until all seats are filled. Tickets not required.