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Director Martin Scorsese (M.) with Pope Francis (l.) and his wife Helen Morrison in the Vatican
Photo: Vatican Mediai / cpp / Independent Photo Agency Int. / IMAGO
It was already clear that Martin Scorsese is working on a new film about Christ. Now he has announced that a whole series about saints will be created. The series will be an eight-part docudrama titled “Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints.” Scorsese will host, narrate and produce it. The series will air on the streaming service Fox Nation, it announced.
The series follows the lives of eight men and women who were beatified. These include Joan of Arc or the Virgin of Orléans, Francis of Assisi, Thomas Becket, Mary Magdalene and Maximilian Kolbe, a Franciscan monk who voluntarily died in Auschwitz to save the life of a family father.
Scorsese was inspired to create the project by a conversation with the Pope. Scorsese met him last year. "I answered the Pope's call the only way I know how: to write a script for a film about Jesus," said Scorsese. Filming for the 80-minute film is scheduled to begin this year. The template is “The Life of Jesus” by the Japanese author Endō Shūsaku.
Together with the Italian writer and Curia official Antonio Spadaro, Martin Scorsese recently published a volume of conversations. There is also a first draft of the script for the Jesus film.
The first four episodes of “Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints” will air in November. The remaining four will run until May 2025.
Oscar winner Martin Scorsese grew up Catholic in New York and actually wanted to become a priest. However, after his first year of seminary, he failed and decided to pursue filmmaking instead. Scorsese already dealt with the themes of religion and Christianity in his 1988 film “The Last Temptation of Christ.” In it Willem Dafoe plays a doubting Jesus, David Bowie played Pontius Pilate. “Silence” was published in 2016 and is about two Jesuit priests who are supposed to do missionary work in Asia.
lpz/AP