(UTV | COLOMBO) – Finally, three years after releasing the first photo from the frequently delayed feature, the first trailer is out for Dutch filmmaker Paul Verhoeven’s “Benedetta” from Pathe Films and SBS Productions.
The “Robocop,” “Total Recall,” “Showgirls,” “Starship Troopers” and “Basic Instinct” director last delivered 2016’s psychosexual thriller “Elle” which scored rave reviews and landed Isabelle Huppert an Oscar nomination and Golden Globe win.
Now he finally returns five years later with this biopic about Benedetta Carlini, a nun in 17th Century Tuscany. Carlini was hailed as a visionary and then later accused of fabricated miracles, homosexuality and other charges, and imprisoned for nearly four decades.
Virginie Efira, Charlotte Rampling, Lambert Wilson, Daphne Patakia, Olivier Rabourdin and Clotilde Courau star. The film is based on historian Judith C Brown’s novel “Immodest Acts” and adapted by Gerard Soeteman (“Black Book”).
Cannes director Thierry Fremaux has previously described the film as an “erotic and mischievous, also political, vision of the Middle Ages in a grandiose production.” The film is scheduled to premiere at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival in competition for the Palme d’Or.