Padre Pio has performed a posthumous miracle through the actor Shia LaBeouf, who portrays him in the eponymous film by Abel Ferrara. The actor converted to Catholicism during the making of the movie. It speaks volumes about the continuous fascination of this Italian friar of the Capuchin Order, object of adoration and worship for many (the holy cards depicting him with a halo are ubiquitous), and perplexity for others (true mystic or an impostor? Real or fake miracles?)

Padre Pio will be shown at the Venice Film Festival at the Giornate degli Autori on September 2 and is a highly anticipated film. The encounter between the eccentric actor from Hollywood and the eccentric Italian American director from New York, combined with the film’s subject matter, generated plenty of excitement, even before the screening.

In order to step into the shoes of the mystic from Pietrelcina, LaBeouf chose to live in a convent, as a guest of the Capuchin friars. This decision, the actor told the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, led him to discover the comfort of faith and life in a community, isolated from the rest of the world.

“I no longer needed to go anywhere else. Like the last stop on the train,” he said. “Now I know that God was using my ego to guide me to him, to take me away from the world of temptations, but this could not have happened if I had not decided to get in the car, go to the monastery, thinking, ‘Oh, this will save my career’”.

Padre Pio, born Francesco Forgione (in Pietrelcina, province of Benevento, Campania, on 25 May 1887 – he died in San Giovanni Rotolo on 23 September 1968), was an Italian presbyter and mystic of the Order of Capuchin Friars Minor; the Catholic Church venerates him as a saint and celebrates his liturgical memorial on September 23, the anniversary of his death. He a popular and controversial figure, but Ferrara was fascinated by the strength of Pio’s personality, less by the controversies.

American-born Ferrara, (71) is known for cult movies such as The Bad Lieutenant (1992), King of New York (1990), Body Snatchers (1993), The Addiction (1995), and has made many documentaries on various subjects, including many about Italy, to which he has come very close in recent decades. He directed a film about the writer/poet/director Pier Paolo Pasolini, played by Willem Dafoe and Ferrara is busy working on a documentary about the singer and poet Patti Smith. A thriller Zeros and Ones, starring Ethan Hawke, will soon be released.

For now, all attention is on Padre Pio. The film focuses on the period in his 30s when he began to become famous and perform miracles.

“The story we tell is set in 1920, post-World War I and immediately pre-fascism; it’s not a biography, but a parallel journey between two worlds,” Ferrara told the HFPA last June at the Allora Fest in Ostuni (Puglia) where a segment of Padre Pio was shown. “The world of Pio closed in a convent, fighting against temptations of spirit and flesh and that of the workers and peasants movements, committed against the landowners in the years immediately preceding Fascism.”

Ferrara’s grandfather Abel was born in Sarno, near Pietralcina, when Padre Pio was also born. “I feel this story very close because it was a turbulent time, the soldiers had returned to these lands transformed by World War I, the boys who went to study at the University of Bologna had also returned changed and had started talking to the peasants about socialism, and ideals of economic and social equality. In San Giovanni Rotolo there was a massacre in 1920, forgotten by history, of opponents of the followers of the ‘Fascio of the Order’ who was about to win the elections. It’s an event that greatly influences the creed of Pio. The poverty in his land inflamed his faith and his determination to help the needy. “

Ferrara’s grandfather emigrated to America around those years: “I was born in the Bronx, but it was like being in Naples,” Ferrara recalls, “because it was full of immigrants who spoke nothing but the Neapolitan dialect. And it was in Naples, when I started living in Italy years ago, that I discovered Padre Pio. I felt the urge to tell his story in a film. “

The script of Padre Pio is based largely on the writings of the man himself, “stuff drenched in poetry”, says Ferrara). Alongside Shia LeBouef, it also stars the Italian actors Marco Leonardi, Luca Lionello and Brando Pacitto. “Shia LaBeouf believed in the project,” explains the director. “He began to know Pio as he discovered his own Christianity. With this film Shia took the classic plunge into the dark, he jumped. He went to live in a monastery for months, he shared his time with his brothers. It was a very powerful discovery for him, for all of us.”