Genre: Historical Drama

Language: Italian with English Subtitles

Director: Pasquale Scimeca

Cast: Anna Bonaiuto, Leonardo Cesare Abude, Tony Bertarelli, Marcello Mazzarella

Released: 2005

Duration: 93 Minutes

Rating: M contains violence and offensive language

Distribution: Adriana Chiesa Enterprises srl

La Biennale di Venezia 2005 – Official selection Venice Days; 2005 Toronto Int. Film festival – official selection Contemporary World cinema

Before 1492 Spain was a land in which Jews, Moslems and Christians had lived together peaceably for centuries.  Then on the threshold of the 16th Century an edict from Queen Isabel of Castile decreed that Spain was to be only Catholic, announcing the expulsion of the Jews and Muslims.  Thus began a long period of religious intolerance, inquisitions and persecutions against Jews that would lead to the great tragedy of the Nazi Shoah.

The film follows the journey of the young Jew, Joshua, as he flees from Spain to Sicily, over seas and mountains, across all faiths – Islam, Christianity, Judaism – to his tragic destiny.  The Jews of Spain await a new exodus and perhaps, after Moses, a new Messiah to lead them across another desert and beyond another sea. Yet for Joshua, this apparently unavoidable destiny crosses that of another Jew, Jesus of Nazareth.

‘The passion of Joshua the Jew’ constitutes both an outcry against intolerance and a sign of hope for those who believe that love of God transcends all beliefs.

“The film ritualizes the religious event without detracting from its rawness … the antithesis of the sadistic realism of Mel Gibson.  In the role of Joshua, Leonardo Cesare Abude recalls Pasolini’s Christ in ‘The Gospel’”  La Repubblica

“The film’s central message is the basis upon which to build a new theology that speaks to all.  The film is raw, solemn and ‘Rossellinian’”  Il Giornale