In 1945, doctor, painter and political exile Carlo Levi published his memoir titled “Christ Stopped at Eboli.” The book was very well received, leading many in Italy to fully understand the poor living conditions in some Southern villages. The novel was famously adapted by Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Francesco Rosi a film of the same name.
And in honor of Film Forum presenting, courtesy of Rialto Pictures, the never-before-seen, complete, uncut version of “Christ Stopped at Eboli,” we’re proud to give our readers an exclusive look at the new trailer and poster for the film. The film follows a man who is exiled to Lucania, a region deep in southern Italy, where people say that Christ himself has forsaken it.
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“Christ Stopped at Eboli” was originally made into a TV movie, told in four 55-minute parts, in 1979. However, when the film was released outside of its home country, it was cut down into a 150-minute feature film. Now, US film fans will be able to experience Rosi’s “masterpiece” for the first time in all of its 3-hour and 40-minute glory.
“Christ Stopped at Eboli” will have an exclusive engagement at Film Forum from April 3 to April 18 before the film premieres in LA on April 26.
Here’s the synopsis:
In 1935, painter, writer, doctor and anti-Fascist leader Carlo Levi (1902-1975) – played by the great Gian Maria Volontè (Rosi’s Lucky Luciano and Mattei Affair, Petri’s Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion, Melville’s Le Cercle Rouge, Leone bad guy, etc.) – is exiled from Turin to Lucania, a region deep into the instep of southern Italy, a place so abject even Christ has forsaken it. In this most desolate of landscapes, existing side by side with ravishing natural beauty, he finds Gagliano, a town with one car and only one porcelain toilet; where magic spells, curative coins, and evil spirits exist side by side with Christianity – the drunken, disgraced priest denounces the locals as “donkeys, not Christians;” where cleaning lady Irene Papas (Guns of Navarone, Zorba the Greek) is the only woman who can enter his house because she’s already had 17 children with 17 different men; and where, until Levi is allowed to practice, there are no competent, trusted doctors. And yet, as Levi lives among them, humanity starts to break through.
