The first movie to have its world premiere in the Vatican
Perhaps the key to a successful movie release is simple: get that movie blessed by god.
I’m not talking about having a priest sprinkle a little holy water over the camera lens, or keeping a pastor on standby for spiritual guidance and the odd bit of script advice. I mean going straight to the top, to the highest level of the Church. Why rely on luck or quiet prayers at home when you can appeal directly to the source and involve the Vatican, even the Pope himself, in making sure your film succeeds?
OK, so you can’t actually get the pope to co-sign a creative project, that’s an exaggeration; however, there have been a few movies that have managed to get the Vatican to agree to host the premiere right there on the holy ground in Rome.
The relationship between the Vatican and Hollywood is a complex one, as expected, as with their strict Catholic ways, there are obviously hoards upon hoards of films that the church wouldn’t deem moral. The priests and nuns aren’t exactly settling down for a movie night and thinking ‘Ah yes, let’s watch The Exorcist’ or hitting play on something like The Conjuring.
Yet the Vatican does have an approved movie list, as in 1995 Pope John Paul II and Cardinal John Patrick Foley put together a list of 45 films they recommended, which included some predictable choices that focus on religion, like The Passion of Joan of Arc or The Gospel According to St Matthew and others specifically categorised for their moral value, such as It’s a Wonderful Life, Schindler’s List, and even the Marlon Brando classic, On the Waterfront.
But then some of them are just outright odd, like the Catholic church openly recommending and endorsing Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. It seems the pope was into lengthy sci-fi flicks, but even the new pope seems to share the same enthusiasm, as he revealed he actually watched Conclave in order to prepare for the event. However, for certain films, it was taken a step further as the Vatican granted them permission to host the world premiere there.
So, what was the first movie to have a premiere in the Vatican?
The film that is considered to be the first proper world premiere hosted at the Vatican is Catherine Hardwicke’s 2006 The Nativity Story, which is a pretty classic adaptation, taking the tale kids stage each and every Christmas at school, and putting it on the big screen.
It certainly wasn’t the first time this story had been put to screen, but with a big budget and studios hoping to cash in on the spending power of Christian audiences, everything was thrown at this production, including managing to get the Vatican to host its premiere.
However, there’s some delicious irony in the whole tale; Hardwicke feels like an odd choice of director given that her earlier releases were things like Thirteen, which is a dark free-for-all of teenage sex and drug use, and wilder still is that on the set of The Nativity Story, the actor playing Mary fell pregnant at 16, so the production clearly wasn’t operating in line with good old-fashioned Christian values.
Before that, though, Quo Vadis, a Polish historical film, had received a special gala screening in front of the Pope in 2001, although not a full-on premiere.
