Fresh from his standing ovation at Cannes Film Festival for his latest film Killers of the Flower Moon, Martin Scorsese has taken a tour of Italy, including a meeting with Pope Frances in the Vatican, where the Oscar winner also announced his plans to make a film about Jesus, Deadline reports.
Variety reports that Martin Scorsese told a conference in Rome on Saturday that he had been inspired to respond to an appeal by the Pontiff for artists – “in the only way I know how, by imagining and writing a screenplay for a film about Jesus. And I’m about to start making it.”
Before the conference titled “The Global Aesthetics of the Catholic Imagination,” Scorsese and his wife Helen were introduced to Pope Francis during a private audience.
According to Variety, Antonio Spadaro – the editor of the periodical which organised the conference -reported that the conversation between Pope and director included shared film references and anecdotes, and that Scorsese was moved by the former’s appeal to “let us see Jesus.”
It won’t be the first time Scorsese has been inspired by religion for his work. He previously made The Last Temptation of Christ in 1988, Kundun about the life of the Dalai Lama, in 1997, and Silence about Jesuit Christians in 2016.