A feature adaptation of David Kertzer’s 1997 non-fiction book ‘The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara’ is on the way with Academy Award-winning filmmaker Steven Spielberg attached to direct, says Deadline.
Tony Kushner adapted the screenplay, which recounts the story of “a young Jewish boy in Bologna, Italy in 1858 who, having been secretly baptized, is forcibly taken from his family to be raised as a Christian. His parents’ struggle to free their son becomes part of a larger political battle that pits the Papacy against forces of democracy and Italian unification.”
British actor Mark Rylance, who most recently collaborated with Spielberg on ‘Bridge Of Spies’ and the upcoming ‘The BFG,’ is on board to play Pope Pius IX.
Spielberg is expected to move on to ‘The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara’ after he wraps the much anticipated adaptation of Ernest Cline’s ‘Ready Player One.’
THE BFG is released in Irish cinemas July 22, 2016.