The New York Film Festival screening of Paul Verhoeven’s sensational lesbian nun romance “Benedetta” drew Catholic demonstrators to Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center. Virginie Efira plays Benedetta Carlini, a rookie nun within the 17th century time frame. She joins an Italian novitiate and begins a lesbian-loving relationship with this other sister. The film was released to rave reviews at the Cannes Film Festival.
IFC Films, which will release the director’s new film on December 3 in the United States, verified to IndieWire that the demonstration was not a PR ploy. On Twitter, festival-goers shared news and photographs from the demonstration.
“They are offended by the film’s ‘blasphemous’ depiction of nuns and Catholicism. “They’re continually shouting Hail Marys into megaphones,” stated Christian Blauvelt, Managing Editor of IndieWire. Demonstrators appeared to be members of a collective called America Needs Fatima, with some beating drums and bagpipes. After Kevin Smith’s 1999 film “Dogma,” the above looks to become the first large Catholic condemnation of a New York Film Festival film.
Inside the theater, before the premiere began, New York Film Festival programmer Dennis Lim asked the audience “How many Catholics are with us?” About a third of the audience raised their hands.
Lim then thanked the Catholic League for protesting outside, adding that “Verhoeven doesn’t provoke without a purpose.”
While neither the filmmaker nor any on-screen talent was present, the screening was attended by screenwriter David Birke. He co-wrote the film with Verhoeven and said that he’s willing to go through the screenplay line by line to show why the film is “not my fault,” which is to say that history backs the story.