Steven Spielberg will direct a new movie about a 19th century parents’ struggle to regain the son that was forcibly taken to be raised as a Christian after secretly being baptized.
The script for The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara was written by Tony-Award winner Tony Kushner, based on the book by Pulitzer Prize-Award winner David Kertzer.
The non-fiction book written in 1997 tells the story of the six-year-old boy who was seized from his family’s home in 1858, after being secretly baptized as an infant by the family’s serving girl. The family went up against Pope Pius IX, who took a personal interest in the boy, in order to get him returned in a case that became an international cause célèbre.
Mark Rylance, who starred in Spielberg’s last hit, Bridge of Spies, and won a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award, is set to play Pope Pius IX.
