About

'Kidnapped' is based on the true story of Edgardo Mortara, a young Jewish boy from Bologna, Italy. Edgardo's doting Catholic nursemaid claimed that, when Edgardo was an infant and seriously ill, she had secretly and impulsively carried out an emergency baptism because she feared Edgardo would die and go to limbo. When this came to the attention of the Inquisition authorities some years later in 1858 when he was six, Edgardo was forcibly taken from his family to be raised as a Catholic.

The child was raised within the orbit of Pope Pius IX, who made Edgardo his pet and turned the case into a trial of strength between the church and anti-papal nationalists, foreign journalists and the Jewish community. As such, his parents' struggle to free their son became part of a larger political battle that pitted the papacy against the forces of democracy and Italian unification.

An economical and impassioned screenplay conveys both a palpable sense of anger in underscoring the devastating consequences of family separation, as well as portraying an astute study of power, the dynamics of oppression and resistance and a country on the cusp of revolution.

Non-member tickets are £5 (full-time students £3) and can be purchased in advance from The Exchange's Box Office online at http://exchangetwickenham.co.uk/events, by telephone 020 8240 2399 or in person.

For further information on RFS and the programme of films, please visit
http://www.richmondfilmsoc.org.uk