HOPE IS A UNIVERSAL MESSAGE.
In 2014, Wim Wenders was offered a chance by the Vatican to lead a project about Francis, the new pope, the first from the Southern Hemisphere and very different from the man he was replacing. Wenders agreed to make this movie, shooting interview segments with the pontiff and blending them with lots of archive footage where Francis meets the poor and the powerful. The film takes him all over the world, but it’s Francis talking straight into the camera, to his audience, that grabs one’s attention. A good sermon illustrating Francis’s belief in helping the planet and those in need… but his charisma can’t save this dully devout doc.
2018-Germany-France-Italy-Switzerland. 96 min. Color. Directed and narrated by Wim Wenders. Screenplay: Wim Wenders, David Rosier.
Trivia: Co-produced by Wenders.