Karol. The man who became the pope

(According to a 2005 press release from RTI and Taodue Film) ^[1]

Part One

1939 year . Karol Wojtyła is almost twenty years old and attends the University of Krakow , the city where his father moved him from his native town of Wadowice . When Karol was a teenager, he lost his mother and older brother.

In September of the same year, Hitler invaded Poland .

Karol and his father, like many Poles at that moment, were heading east, to the still free part of the country, with the intention of joining the reorganizing Polish army as volunteers in order to respond to the Nazi invasion. The sad, death-streaked exodus of refugees is accompanied by the first news of the persecution launched against the Jews .

Karol worries about the fate of his Jewish friends, as well as the fate of Hani, his closest friend, a study friend who shares his passion for theater. Chania left Krakow and left for her native Wadowice to be closer to her Jewish friends who were left alone after the men left for military service.

Karol, during a long journey, sees the suffering and evil that people are capable of doing to their own kind.

Surviving refugees arrive at the San River, beyond which they hope to find an unoccupied native land and army. Instead, refugees learn that the Red Army, after the Hitler-Stalin agreement, attacked and captured part of Poland , which was still free.

Karol and his father, suffering and ill, can only return to Krakow occupied by the Germans.

At the Wawel Castle in Krakow, the Governor-General of Poland, Hans Frank , an unbalanced psychopath and Nazi took office.

Karol is present at the brutal anti-Slavic speech of Frank, which forces all teachers to gather at the University of Cracow to prohibit them from teaching and arresting. It aims not only to destroy Poland, but also to destroy the roots of the Polish people, their culture and language.

Karol is connected by the strongest friendship with the priest, Father Tomasz, who is fighting to save the Jews and the persecuted, as an example of great human spirit and devotion.

Karol sees with his own eyes the tragedy of the Krakow ghetto and receives from Hani evidence of the tragedy she witnessed in Wadowice : the persecution of Jews and their expulsion from the city to Auschwitz .

Karol is amazed at how Father Tomasz relates to the confession of a German officer. He asks Tomas how to give absolution to someone who violates all human rights. Karol will experience the fruits of her friend’s spiritual work: a German official, Captain Mack, who confesses to Tomasz’s father, rescues Karol when he is knocked off a bicycle by a military truck and the young man remains almost dead in the middle of the road.

When Mac faces an unbearable dilemma, he will prefer the execution to Hitler's further service.

Meanwhile, Karol, in order to escape from the deportation that threatens Slavic youth, finds a job in a career where he meets Novak, a socialist worker. An unusual friendship is suddenly born between two men.

After work, Karol and Hane participate in a secret theater, which is trying to preserve the Polish language and culture.

Over the course of months, many of Karol’s comrades and friends die, fighting in resistance.

Father Tomasz, acting against Nazism and risking to confront and challenge Frank's frenzy, is killed.

Karol is more and more lonely. When his father dies, only Chania, a friend forever, remains from relatives.

During the escape, in order to avoid the dungeons of the SS, Karol accidentally meets with Yana Tiranovsky, a tailor by profession and a mystic who understands and discusses with his youth the state of his spirit, and in the future this will help Karol find his calling.

Karol will say that his decision to become a priest matured under the influence of pain, the terrible scenes of those years, the deaths of many people of his generation, as well as the book that the tailor gave him - The Dark Night of the soul of John of the Cross .

Thus, the goal of his priesthood and life is to devote himself to others, to protect the dignity of every person, no matter who and wherever he is.

Chania, in love with him, resists Karol’s decision and suffers from him. But the choice has been made, and the fate of the young man is a foregone conclusion.

Russians at the door of Krakow, the Nazis are fleeing.

November 1, 1946 Karol produced in the priests.

Meanwhile, the Soviet occupation authorities create a Ministry of Public Security to fight the resistance, with Julian Kordek, an intelligent and dangerous man who hates the Catholic Church, appointed as head of one of its departments.

Part Two

A few years passed after the horrors of World War II, and Karol Wojtyla was slightly over thirty.

The Soviets and the Polish government impose on the population Stalinism by the most severe methods - at the cost of imprisonment, arbitrariness and violence.

Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski , Primate of Poland, does not want to recognize the complete subordination of the church to communist authority.

Vyshinsky is arrested. The weekly magazine Tygodnik Powszechny , one of the most important Catholic publications and Wojtyła's literary refuge, is closed. Other priests and Catholic activists are arrested, some of them sentenced to death. Karol is accepted as an ethics teacher at the University of Lublin , the only Catholic university not closed by the regime.

Karol, trying to resist the arrest of the priest of the church of St. Florian , meets with Julian Cordek. Kordek will become one of his main opponents. Kordek feels the danger emanating from "that priest who is not afraid."

"That Priest" becomes the obsession of Cordek. Kordek puts his man, a student of art history Adam, to Karol.

Adam becomes a friend of Carol and begins a romantic relationship with Maria, a student of the ethics course.

Adam pursues Carol like a shadow, sets up listening devices to control his life, his speech, his confession.

Meanwhile, Karol responds to the wave of repression by trying to educate a new generation of young students who are inherent in such values ​​as freedom, truth and respect for human dignity.

Chania marries a journalist and is waiting for her son. But because of the husband’s warlike spirit, their life became hell: they do not give work, they intimidate, they threaten death. They decide to secretly emigrate to America, like thousands of their fellow citizens in those years. Karol will continue to learn from their letters their fate.

Karol in civilian clothes (priests are forbidden to stay with youth outside the liturgical premises) organizes mountain hiking with students, where they can freely discuss everything from politics to love.

Maria more and more falls in love with Adam, who portrays love for the sole purpose of staying near the “priest” and telling Julian Kordek about his words and actions.

Meanwhile, due to the failure of the government’s economic plans and the lack of freedom and food, a workers' uprising breaks out in Poznan . Worker Novak, comrade Karol, is at the forefront with the strikers. The army opens fire, the massacre begins.

Novak is wounded, but not killed.

Under pressure from popular protests, the new government frees Vyshinsky. People consider the Polish primate a hero who never left the barricades. Kordek begins the same surveillance of Vyshinsky as Wojtyla.

Power, unlike Kordek, is afraid of Vyshinsky, but does not consider Wojtylu dangerous. Wojtyla is considered not a politician, but simply a scientist with mystical hobbies and a passion for mentoring and culture, and, therefore, harmless. Thus, Cordec's obsessive suspicions seem delirious to his superiors.

Kordek demands that Wojtyła is the first Polish bishop to cross the threshold of a party institution, and Bishop Wojtyła unexpectedly comes to such an institution in Krakow , wanting to return at least part of the building where the seminary was previously located.

In vain Kordek speaks of the danger of Wojtyła, and authorities allow Karol Wojtylu to be elevated to the rank of Archbishop of Krakow.

Finally, Wojtyla in the Vatican and at the Second Vatican Council makes a strong speech about the renewal of the Church. In Rome, he was unexpectedly visited by an old friend, a Jew Jerzy, whom he considered dead and who survived the war one of his whole family. The meeting of friends makes them relive the sad past ...

The love story of Adam and Mary continues. Rather, Mary loves Adam, while he, unable to love, plays the role of a lover in order to be able to spy on Wojtyla. However, he fails to prevent Wojtyla from supporting the workers of the city of Nova Hut , "a new city for a new man, a man who no longer needs God."

On Christmas night, Wojtyla is going to celebrate the installation of a giant cross made by the workers of the city. Kordek sends an army and police to disperse the crowd, he is ready to give an order to shoot at people. But the attempt fails. Soldiers refuse to open fire.

In the end, Adam was touched by the power of Karol, his energy with which he speaks of truth and peace, was touched by him and the love of Mary, who did not set him any conditions. He confesses to Karol that he spied on him. Karol not only forgives him, but also embraces him in a friendly embrace, appreciating the courage with which he admitted and is ready to change. Adam will marry Mary; he will not become a believer, but he will fight for truth and justice in a university environment. He will cruelly pay for his humanity.

1978 year . Only 33 days after his election as Pope did John Paul I die. Karol goes from Krakow to the papal conclave ; he has one small suitcase with him. He intends to return in a few days, he has many obligations and deferred business ...

• Script writers: Giacomo Battiato , Gianfranco Svidercoschi
• Scripting Collaboration: Carmelo Pennisi
• Director: Giacomo Battiato
• Assistant Director: Roy Bava
• Casting Director: Anna Zaneva
• Operator: Gianni Mammolotti (Gianni Mammolotti)
• Costume Designer: Malgorzata Zacharska
• Installation: Alessandro Heffler (Alessandro Heffler)
• Editor: Gino Ventriglia
• Scenography: Janusz Sosnowski
• Composer: Ennio Morricone
• Executive Producer: Camilla Nesbitt
• Producers: Pietro Valsecchi
• Thanks for the collaboration: Cardinal Roberto Tucci and Monsignor Pawel Ptasznik

• Dubbing Director: Alexander Novikov

• April 14, 2005 - Vatican (premiere screening)
• April 18, 2005 - Italy
• May 15, 2005 - Canada
• June 17, 2005 - Poland (cinema premiere)
• August 15, 2005 - USA
• September 16, 2005 - Poland (DVD release)

• Festival " Stozhary " (2005, Ukraine). The film is out of the competition program. Shown under the title Karol: The Man Who Became the Pope

• The premiere of the film on Italian television began on April 18, 2005 - the first day of the papal conclave in 2005.

• John Paul II knew that work was underway on a film about him, and said to the lead actor Peter Adamchik: “You are crazy that you are making a film about me. What have I ever done? ”

• Official movie page
• " Karol. The Man Who Became the Pope ” on the Internet Movie Database