The American filmmaker Martin Scorsese, honorary Golden Bear at the 2024 Berlinale for his career, said this Tuesday in Berlin that his interest in Catholicism since his youth led him to now work on a film about Jesus, about which he spoke with Pope Francis on a visit to the Vatican on January 31. “I want to make a film about Jesus that is different, provocative, reflective, and I hope also entertaining,” the 81-year-old director, producer and screenwriter explained jovially at a crowded press conference at the Berlinale, the Berlinale film festival. the German capital.

Martin Scorsese (New York, 1942), one of the most influential filmmakers in world cinema, author of more than 70 films and known for his harsh and often violent representations of American culture, explained that his interest in Catholicism and the priesthood –as a young man he wanted to be a priest- led him to make the film Silencio in 2016.

“In the Vatican they saw that particular film and as a result I met the Pope a couple of times; The connection is that the film is about Jesuit missionaries in Japan in the 17th century and his Holiness is a Jesuit,” Scorsese continued. “At our meeting in January we talked about the currents of thought around the essences of Christianity,” said Scorsese, who in 1988 also filmed The Last Temptation of Christ, which at the time caused great controversy.

When asked by journalists, Martin Scorsese expanded on reflections on the essence of the craft of making films. “What is fashionable dies in a day; “What has values ??remains,” he stated. Regarding whether technology threatens cinema, he said that “cinema is not dying at all, it is transforming, it was never meant to be one thing or another,” and called for “not to be afraid of technology, but not to be slaves to it.” the technology; “Let’s control the technology and send it in the right direction.”

He encouraged filmmakers to focus on “maintaining an individual voice with which to express yourself, and that can be done in a Tik-Tok, in a four-hour film or in a two-part miniseries.” His latest film, the acclaimed The Moon Killers, lasts almost four hours. Starring its favorite actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro, it tells the real case of the murders of members of the Osage tribe in the 1920s, after oil was discovered on the reservation of this Indian community in Oklahoma.

“For anyone who views filmmaking as the art of shaping a story in a completely personal and universal way, Martin Scorsese is an unrivaled role model. His films have accompanied our history as spectators and human beings, his characters have lived and grown within us, his vision of history and humanity has helped us understand and question who we are and where we come from,” the duo argues. directs the Berlinale, Carlo Chatrian (artistic director) and Mariette Rissenbeek (executive director), in the justification of the honorary award.

Among Martin Scorsese’s many other best-known films are: Taxi Driver (1975, Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1976), Raging Bull (1980, which was presented at the 1981 Berlinale out of competition), After Hours (1985, award for best director at Cannes in 1986), The Color of Money (1986), Goodfellas (1990), Cape Fear (1991, in competition at the 1992 Berlinale), The Age of Innocence (1993), Casino (1995), Gangs of New York (2002, presented at the 2003 Berlinale out of competition and again at the 2010 Berlinale in the retrospective section), The Aviator (2004), The Departed (2006), Shine a Light (documentary about the Rolling Stones that opened the 2008 Berlinale), Shutter Island (2010 Berlinale out of competition), Hugo (2011), The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), and The Irishman (2019).

For all this he receives the honorary Golden Bear at this 74th edition of the Berlinale, in a ceremony on Tuesday night in which The Departed is screened, a film with Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio and Jack Nicholson for which he won the Oscar for best film. This year he has ten nominations for the Oscars, which are awarded on March 10, for The Assassins of the Moon, including best film and best direction.