The New Pope

Synopsis

Pius XIII is in a coma. And after an unpredictable and mysterious parenthesis, the Secretary of State Voiello succeeds in the enterprise of having Sir John Brannox, a moderate English aristocrat, charming and sophisticated, placed on the papal throne adopting the name John Paul III.

The new pope seems perfect, but he conceals secrets and a certain fragility. And he immediately understands that it will not be easy to replace the charismatic Pius XIII: hanging between life and death, Lenny Belardo has become a Saint and thousands of faithful are now idolizing him, fueling the contrast between fundamentalisms.

Meanwhile, the Church is under attack from several scandals that risk devastating the hierarchies irreversibly and from external threats striking the symbols of Christianity. As always, however, in the Vatican nothing is what it seems. Good and evil proceed arm in arm towards history. And to reach the showdown we must wait for the events to take their course…

Director's note

The New Pope explores the ambition of two great popes: being forgotten. True servants of God, they need to fade away to allow the gleam of faith and peace to bloom and shine. The utopia of purity.

This is the essence of their majestic religiosity. The ambition of their path.

These two men’s names are John Brannox and Lenny Belardo.

But the long road to oblivion is studded with the earthly obstacles of human feeling: the fundamentalist drift, worldly temptations, the call of vanity, the pitiful profiteering vocation, the slavery of fears and vices, the emotional hindrances that obscure the great plan.

Will our two popes succeed in fulfilling their anachronistic arcane project?

Because being forgotten can be a salvation.

Paolo Sorrentino