5 films and series to delve behind the scenes of the conclave and the Vatican

by Edward Berger , American-British film, 2 h 01

Released last year, Edward Berger's film Conclave , adapted from a best-selling novel by Robert Harris, takes us directly behind the scenes of a conclave and plays with the absolute secrecy surrounding the election of the pope. Ralph Fiennes plays the figure of the camerlengo, charged with ensuring the smooth running of operations in a context of strong opposition between progressives and conservatives. While the multiple twists and turns that punctuate the storyline seem improbable, the film is undoubtedly the one that most meticulously reconstructs the various stages of the conclave.

by Nanni Moretti , Italian film, 1h44, available on Arte boutique

Another conclave, this one more fanciful. Italian director Nanni Moretti imagines , after several unsuccessful rounds of voting, the surprise election of Cardinal Melville (Michel Piccoli), who is seized by a panic attack as he appears on the balcony for the "habemus papam" ritual.

But until he appears before the crowd, the conclave is not over. While the College of Cardinals summons a psychoanalyst—Nanni Moretti himself—to try to resolve the situation, cardinals and members of the Holy See try to kill time. The film was considered prophetic after Benedict XVI's resignation two years later.

American-French-Italian series ( The Young Pope and The New Pope ) in two seasons, available on Prime Video

The election of Pius XIII, the first American pontiff, the youngest successor to Saint Peter, with unorthodox manners and full of contradictions, is not without shaking up the Curia. With "The Young Pope," filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino delivers a deliberately caricatured and irreverent portrayal of the institution and its symbolic power, in a brilliant visual opera that flirts with limits.

by Fernando Meirelles , British-Italian-American-Argentine film, 2 hours 6 minutes, available on Netflix

Adapted from Anthony Mc Carten's play, The Pope , Brazilian filmmaker Fernando Meirelles' film imagines the imaginary encounter in 2012 between the then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio and Pope Benedict XVI. While the former, disappointed by the direction given to the Church, asks to resign, the Pope summons him to the Vatican and confides in him his intention to resign.

A theological and spiritual dialogue then begins between the two men on their opposing views on the future of Catholicism. Featuring two excellent actors, Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce, the film is instructive about the major debates that are stirring up the Curia.

by Marco Bellochio , Italian film, 2h05, available on VOD

Marco Bellocchio takes us back in time to the mid-19th century, to the era of the Papal States, when the Pope was not only a spiritual leader, but also a sovereign who reigned supreme over territories where canon law applied.

The film "The Abduction" tells the true story of a Jewish child , Edgardo Mortara, taken from his parents to give him a Catholic education under the pretext that he had been secretly baptized by his wet nurse. In a Vatican of pomp and circumstance, the child becomes the Pope's protégé and is sacrificed in the name of a dogma, that of infallibility, symbolized by the "non possumus" pronounced at the time by Pius IX.