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Trailer Watch: Abel Ferrara’s Padre Pio
Padre Pio, Abel Ferrara’s Shia LaBeouf-starring follow-up to 2021’s Zeroes and Ones, finally gets a trailer ahead of its theatrical release next month. The biopic, co-written by Ferrara and Maurizio Braucci, depicts the early life of the titular Catholic saint as he begins his ministry at a monastery in a remote Italian village that becomes rocked by political tension in the wake of WWI. The film premiered last year during the Venice Film Festival in Italy, fitting for the film’s subject matter and the director’s longtime residence in the country.
Alongside LaBeouf, Padre Pio stars Cristina Chiriac, Marco Leonardi, Asia Argento, Vincenzo Crea, Luca Lionello, Brando Pacitto, Stella Mastrantonio and Salvatore Ruocc. Ferrara approached LaBeouf for the lead role after the director’s frequent collaborator Willem Dafoe suggested that the Honey Boy actor would be a good fit to portray the real-life saint, who passed in 1968 at the age of 81. Padre Pio was then beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1999 and canonized in 2002.
Gravitas Ventures will release Padre Pio on June 2.
