Benedetta Trivia | 20 facts about the movie

Benedetta is a 2021 drama film, which was directed and co-written by the legendary film maker Paul Verhoeven.

Let’s find out more about the movie!

1. Benedetta is a 2021 biographical drama film.
2. It was directed and co-written by Paul Verhoeven.
3. Virginie Efira star as Benedetta Carlini in the movie a novice nun in the 17th century who joins an Italian convent and has a lesbian love affair with another nun.
4. The film is loosely based on the 1986 non-fiction book Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy by Judith C. Brown.
5. It brings back most of the key crew members from Verhoeven’s previous film Elle (which co-starred Efira), including producer Saïd Ben Saïd, writer David Birke, composer Anne Dudley and editor Job ter Burg.
6. The film premiered at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival in competition for the Palme d’Or.
7. Principal photography on the retitled production began on 19 July 2018 in Montepulciano, Italy.
8. Other locations included Val d’Orcia and Bevagna, also in Italy, as well as the Silvacane Abbey and Le Thoronet Abbey, in France.
9. Production was followed by a strong campaign of secrecy and no one, unless working on the film, was allowed on the set.
10. Producer Saïd Ben Saïd admitted that the story was a “subject to controversy” and feared reactions from fundamentalist Catholic associations.
11. In France, the film averages 3,5/5 on the AlloCiné from 36 press reviews.
12. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 86% based on 63 reviews, with an average rating of 7.50/10.
13. The website’s critical consensus reads: “Precariously walking a tightrope of varying genres and tones, Benedetta provokes salient questions about sexual freedom and its relationship to faith.”
14. On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 71 out of 100, based on 18 critics, indicating “generally favorable reviews.”
15. Initially scheduled for release at the Cannes Film Festival in 2019, but Paul Verhoeven unexpectedly suffered a hip injury during production in December 2018, due to the set’s location which involved lots of hills and climbing. Post-production in Amsterdam had to be delayed until the following June in order to recover from his surgery. However, subsequent complications from pain medication caused an intestinal obstruction that ended in a life-threatening colon perforation; fortunately, Verhoeven’s wife urged him to go to the hospital in time. Verhoeven and producer Saïd Ben Saïd agreed to delay the release to 2020 in order for Verhoeven to recover, and be fully present during the post-production process. However, the world-wide COVID-19 pandemic caused the movie to be delayed another year.
16. Although Paul Verhoeven had hoped to convince Isabelle Huppert to play a supporting role in the film, producer Saïd Ben Saïd stated on Twitter on May 31, 2018, that the actress was not joining the project.
17. This is Paul Verhoeven’s second French-language film.
18. Marks the return of director Paul Verhoeven working with screenwriter David Birke after Elle.
19. At a press conference during Cannes, Paul Verhoeven said he was driven to make Benedetta because it was “about events that in some way had really happened. I was not trying to get into some female thing that I didn’t understand. I understood it because the women themselves told me in the book what they were doing.” Yet actresses Louise Chevillotte and Clotilde Courau said that the film still tells the story from a woman’s side.
20. Chevillotte said, “Women are depicted in a complex way. What I love in Paul’s films is that women are portrayed in all their complexity and this film is the embodiment of that approach.” Courau added that “feminism is very much there, thanks to Paul’s approach and sensitivity. There is an animal side to the film and that is part and parcel of a human being. Working with Paul is a huge opportunity. In his films there is no viewpoint, he lets each viewer adopt their own viewpoint.”
21. On 16 February 2018, The Hollywood Reporter announced Pathé would be producing and distributing the film in France and would also be handling international sales.
22. On 29 August 2018, Pathé and SBS Productions released a first look image of the film.
23. Although it was initially reported that the film would premiere at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, Pathé announced on 14 January 2019 that the release had been postponed until 2020, stating that post-production had been delayed as Verhoeven was recovering from hip surgery.
24. However, the release was delayed again to 2021, following the cancellation of the 2020 edition of the Cannes Film Festival where the film was set to premiere, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
25. On 10 May 2020, Cannes director Thierry Fremaux confirmed the film’s selection and stated that “Paul Verhoeven delivers an erotic and mischievous, also political, vision of the Middle Ages in a grandiose production.”
26. Benedetta‘s world premiere took place at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival in competition for the Palme d’Or.
27. By the end of its run, it will have screened at film festivals in Brussels, Busan, Haifa, Hong Kong, Karlovy Vary, London, New York, and San Sebastian.
28. On 5 May 2021, Pathé unveiled the first trailer and final theatrical release poster.
29. That same month, MUBI and IFC Films acquired the distribution rights to the United Kingdom, Ireland, and the United States respectively.
30. It is scheduled to be released in the United States on 3 December 2021.