the catholic school movie review guardian

The Catholic School by Edoardo Albinati review – violent crime without the drama

W inner of the Strega prize, Italy’s equivalent of the Booker, The Catholic School turns on a notorious crime that took place in an Italian seaside town in 1975, when three well-to-do young men from Rome abducted, raped and tortured two teenage girls, killing one, in a case that provoked a wave of horrified soul-searching, not least among the middle classes.

Edoardo Albinati’s novel is a mammoth, roundabout attempt to conjure with the fact that he went to the same boarding school as the perpetrators, analysing – over more than 1,200 pages – the environment that formed them, from the political terrorism of Italy’s “years of lead” (the criminals were neo-fascists) to the post-60s upending of social and sexual norms that left bourgeois families like Albinati’s at sea.

The result resembles a true crime novel as told by Karl Ove Knausgaard . “What can explain the fact that yesterday I spent at least an hour online searching for photos of a skinny Belgian model with big tits? Why does sexual freedom so closely resemble slavery?” Albinati asks in lines typical of his candid self-portraiture and abstract musing. “Sex is a singular sort of prison whose bars keep you from getting in, rather than getting out,” he writes: “what you want, what you desire is inside ”.

An endnote from Albinati’s translator, Antony Shugaar, suggests the specificity of his cultural references may deter non-Italians. Maybe, but fiction can thrive on detail and The Catholic School is full of gusty generalisation: its challenge might actually be its lack of specificity. While you can see why Albinati avoids lingering on the criminals at the narrative’s heart, his deliberately anti-novelistic style, lacking any characters or story to speak of, makes it hard to buy his idea that their actions represented some kind of “reprisal in the larger context of a global war” triggered by feminism – an idea that, undramatised, seems little more than a strenuous bid to intellectualise violent misogyny.

This isn’t a normal novel, and nor is the pact it makes with the reader; 900 pages in, Albinati tells “anyone who has had enough” to skip nearly half of what’s left. Ignore that advice and the reward is moot: late passages involve, among other things, a dream Albinati has about taking revenge on dog owners who let their pets foul the pavement and some needy emails from an ex-classmate failing to muster numbers for a school reunion.

Yet, weirdly, it’s in these drifting tides of consciousness, rather than the book’s quasi-anthropological grandstanding, that Albinati’s titanic enterprise ultimately feels most alive, even if what they tend to reveal – men think about sex; sometimes it’s ugly – isn’t exactly news.

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‘the catholic school’ (‘la scuola cattolica’): film review | venice 2021.

In Stefano Mordini’s film, based on Edoardo Albinati’s fact-based novel of the same name, a group of young, privileged men commit a disturbing crime.

By Lovia Gyarkye

Lovia Gyarkye

Arts & Culture Critic

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The story starts like this: A woman hears a noise — it sounds like a cry for help — from her apartment in a tony neighborhood in Rome and calls the police. The uniformed officers arrive and find two teenage girls locked in the trunk of a Fiat 127, their bodies brutally maimed and scarred. One of them, 17-year-old Donatella Colasanti, is shaken but alive; the other, 19-year-old Rosaria Lopez, is dead. Two of their attackers have been found and the other, perhaps tipped off, has fled.

The Circeo massacre, as the rape and murder would come to be known, shook Italian society. It was 1975 and the aggressive crime, committed by three young men who attended San Leone Magno, a prestigious all-boys Catholic high school, was a reminder of the misogyny, classism and fascism festering within the nation. Eduardo Albinati chronicled this harrowing tale in his 2016 novel, The C atholic School . Albinati attended the same school as the accused, and his semi-autographical story uses the crime as a lens for examining the institution’s toxic environment and inherent contradictions. In the film version, which premiered at Venice, Italian director Stefano Mordini translates Albinati’s novel into an uneven and at times distressing cinematic experience.

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Venue: Venice Film Festival (Out of Competition) Cast: Benedetta Porcaroli, Giulio Pranno, Emanuele Maria Di Stefano, Giulio Fochetti, Leonardo Ragazzini Director: Stefano Mordini Screenwriters: Massimo Gaudioso, Luca Infascelli, Stefano Mordini

The film begins with a haunting scene of the beautiful boys of this Catholic school performing exercise drills near a swimming pool — a mesmerizing shot that announces the movie’s beguiling visual language. Through voiceover narration, Edo (Emanuele Maria Di Stefano) introduces the students of this exclusive institution. Although the film need focus on only three of them, The Catholic School indulges in detailing the lives of many of the students, perhaps in an attempt to paint a portrait of the world they inhabited.

Arbus (Giulio Fochetti) is the smartest and the most skeptical when it comes to God and the school. He wants to escape by graduating early. His misanthropy grants him an unmatched level of respect and spares him from bullying, separating him from his classmates. On the other side of the religious spectrum is Gioacchino (Andrea Lintozzi), a quiet boy who grew up in a pious home. Next comes Picchatello (Alessandro Cantalini), a menace whose attractive mother (Jasmine Trinca) is sleeping with his classmate, the effortlessly cool Stefano Jervi (Guido Quaglione).

The boys who will later rape and abuse Donatella (Benedetta Porcaroli) and Rosaria (Federica Torchetti) are, in no special order, Angelo (Luca Vergoni), the one with a scary appetite for violence; Andrea (Giulio Pranno), whose menacing reputation makes him a mysterious and well-respected figure at school; and Gianni (Francesco Cavallo), a lanky, longhaired boy whose tense relationship with his powerful father becomes one of the film’s focus points. Despite their differences in age and temperament, these boys are all governed by the unspoken rules of masculinity. Their beliefs and behaviors are merely attempts to perform what they think it means to be a man. I’d be remiss if I did not mention the strength of the cast. Strong performances from the actors playing the students really hold the film together.

The Catholic School announces itself as a timeline of events before the Circeo massacre, yet its opening sequences feel more like a series of character studies, sketches that reveal how the school and larger community operate. With Edo as our guide, we come to understand, often with a bit of a heavy hand, the secrets, deception and money powering relationships. Mordini looks closely at and sensitively explores the boys’ home lives, using their interactions with their parents and siblings to paint a portrait of a monied community. It becomes increasingly clear that the parents have sent their boys to this institution not for an education, but for refuge. Here, under the guidance of stern administrators, their boys will be safe from terrible influences. Yet the sinister truth is that their sons are the violent ones.

It’s when The Catholic School changes course and begins to focus on Angelo, Andrea and Gianni that it wobbles. The characters we had spent so much time with suddenly seem irrelevant, and the time stamps — which jump around and have no coherent order — make it difficult to follow the basic chronology of events. What drives the boys to commit such a heinous act is not entirely clear either. The film itself starts to feel like two separate projects related only by Edo’s voiceover and cinematographer Luigi Martinucci’s rich, golden visuals.

Of course, there are ways for the film to both psychoanalyze the community and retell this harrowing story, but Mordini’s screenplay, co-written with Massimo Gaudioso and Luca Infascelli, struggles to do so. If the goal were to underscore how the supposed values of this upper-middle-class bunch collapsed, it might have made more sense to begin the film with its ending, and then spend more time on what happened after the girls were found.

The narrative’s women, who seem like the real victims of the community’s unspoken rules and structure, are shortchanged here. While it’s interesting to see how the mothers and sisters of these students navigate a repressive, hyper-masculine society, it’s a shame that Donatella and Rosaria receive very little attention beyond Mordini’s indulgent third act, which focuses on the mechanics of their torture. Considering their outsize impact on Italian society (especially Donatella, who dedicated her life to fighting for justice), this framing not only feels too shallow, but it seemingly reinforces the kind of misogyny The Catholic School seeks to point out.

Full credits

Venue: Venice Film Festival (Out of Competition) Production companies: Warner Bros. Entertainment Italia, Picomedia Cast: Benedetta Porcaroli, Giulio Pranno, Emanuele Maria Di Stefano, Giulio Fochetti, Leonardo Ragazzini, Alessandro Cantalini, Andrea Lintozzi, Guido Quaglione, Federica Torchetti, Luca Vergoni, Francesco Cavallo, Angelica Elli, Gianluca Guidi, Corrado Invernizzi, Beatrice Spata, Giulio Tropea, Fabrizio Gifuni, Fausto Russo Alesi, Valentina Cervi, Valeria Golino, Riccardo Scamarcio, Jasmine Trinca Director: Stefano Mordini Screenwriters: Massimo Gaudioso, Luca Infascelli, Stefano Mordini Based on the novel by Edoardo Albinati Producers: Roberto Sessa Executive producer: Chiara Grassi Cinematographer: Luigi Martinucci Production designer: Paolo Bonfini Costume designer: Grazia Materia Music: Andrea Guerra Casting director: Francesca Borromeo

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‘The Catholic School’ Ending, Explained: Is It Based On True Events? What Happened To Donatella & Rosaria?

Directed by Stefano Mordini, “The Catholic School” (or “La Scuola Cattolica” in Italian) is based on the novel written by Edoardo Albinati, of the same name. The screenplay, written by Massimo Gaudioso, Luca Infascelli, and Stefano Mordini, takes us six months back because, in order to understand the crime and why it occurred in the first place, it is necessary to understand the sensibilities and the beliefs of the world that the narrative is based in. One look at the foundation of a hypocritical society, and you realize that it is damaged beyond repair. And who bore the consequences? Well, obviously, the females, and the downtrodden. So, let’s see what happened in Edoardo Albinati’s class of ’75 that changed the outlook of the entire nation.

Spoilers Ahead

Plot Summary: What Is The Film About?

As soon as we are taken inside the gates of St. Luigi High School, we realize that a huge conflict exists between the status quo that the Catholic school wants to maintain and the actual ground reality. It was an all-boys Catholic school where violence was the order of the day, as said by the narrator, Edoardo Albinati, who was also a student there. Romoli had been bullied by some of the seniors, but nobody was ready to speak about anything. They were called into the headmaster’s chambers one by one, but nobody uttered a single word. But when Marco D’Avenia went and saw the state of the poor boy, he had some sympathy. He told the headmaster that Jervi, Gianni Guido, and a few others were involved in the activity. Gianni’s father comes to meet the headmaster, and exactly at that moment, you realize where the real problem lies. Raffaele Guido was an influential man, and the school received a lot of donations from him. He abruptly cut the headmaster in between, as if telling him that he didn’t want to waste his precious time listening to the moral lectures of the pseudo priest. And the wishes of the powerful and influential prevailed. The school mocked the very foundation of justice and gave Romoli a pair of new spectacles. Nothing happened to those who bullied him. Gianni was beaten by his father, but that had little or no impact on the boy, who went to a party later in the evening. The law of the land was very simple: either you bully and dominate people, or you are subdued and live a life in fear. 

Gioacchino Rummo, another student in the catholic school, belonged to a religious family. He was probably the only one who was a believer among all those who claimed to possess high morals and values. Gioacchino doesn’t understand how the perpetrators were left unpunished. His father tells him that evil should be understood and then forgiven. He says that a sinful act should never be retaliated with more vengeance because, apparently it was not the lord’s way. As bizarre as it sounds, the father expected his kids to believe in the theory. Later that evening, Angelo, Gian Petro, Gianni, and others who bullied the junior meet and discuss how nobody said a word to them, and they could get away with it very easily. It comes out in their conversation that they all belonged to rich and influential families who donated huge sums of money to the school. A man comes and tells Angelo that Andrea has been released from jail. At this moment, we do not know who he was, and we assume that he was a delinquent serving a sentence for a crime. Angelo meets his brother, Salvatore, in the night and gives him a lesson in brotherhood. He says that he can never be a snitch. Angelo had a menacing presence, and his brother was scared of him. Angelo was the kind of man who was capable of going to any extent in order to get what he desired. Angelo realized that his brother was a homosexual. He was not ready to accept that fact. How can the brother of a person who is soaked in toxic masculinity, who wants to be in charge, who wants to have his way even if it requires application of force, who takes pleasure in oppressing others, could be so feeble and sissy? Obviously, homosexuality was seen as a disease, and homosexuals were seen as objects to be scorned at. D’Avenia showed traits of being masochistic. He was bludgeoned by Jervi and others, and he seemed to derive pleasure from the pain inflicted upon him. 

Edoardo, on the other hand, found himself in a state of conflict. He confessed in front of the father that he often told lies just to blend in. He validates each and every behavior under peer pressure, but in the end, he feels void from the inside. He believes that if he shows his real side, it won’t be accepted by others. He was stuck in a dilemma where he didn’t understand how to not be a part of the debauchery and maintain his separate set of ideologies. Edoardo’s best friend was a boy named Alessandro Arbus, who was nothing less than a genius. He had a brilliant academic career and didn’t accept anything blindly, not even faith. He was planning to leave the school as he felt that he was not learning anything there. Arbus’ family was very unique too. His sister Leda, with whom Edoardo had been infatuated for quite some time, was a part of a far-right extremists’ group. Arbus’ father was always more interested in his students than in his own children. Later it was revealed that he was a homosexual, though the family knew about it from before. 

Stefano Jervi was another student who had made a very distinctive image for himself. He looked more mature, more confident and more calm than the others. One glance at him, and you would know that he was under control. Jervi shared an intimate relationship with one of his colleagues’ mothers. Picchiatello Martirolo (Pik)was the son of a famous actress named Coralla Martirolo. Jervi often visited her house when Picchiatello wasn’t there. Pik was probably autistic. He found out about the affair of her mother and felt distraught, though he knew that there was nothing he could change about it. 

If one keenly listens to the conversations that the parents had with their children and what the teachers taught in the classes, one will get to know that something was clearly not right with their beliefs. While asking his students to observe a painting in which Christ was being beaten by people, a teacher says that the persecutors are victims too, because those who hurt others, hurt themselves too. The students were a bit taken aback because they themselves had never heard such a twisted interpretation of the Bible. Raffaele Guido, the father of Gianni, believed that persuasion, threat, and punishment were the three most important pillars of teaching. He often told his son that as a man, he could not be so emotional. He took it as a vice and told him to be cold-blooded. Because of the kind of upbringing the boys had, it was just a matter of time before their recklessness turned into lawlessness and resulted in devastating consequences. 

What Happened To Donatella And Rosaria?

Gian Pietro had given a lift to two unknown girls named Donatella Colasanti and Nadia. Gian told them that his name was Carlo. He did that because he saw them as probable targets upon whom the boys would prey upon later. His intentions are clearly established when he meets the rest of the gang. He told Angelo that the girls stayed in Montagnola. By their reaction, you come to know that it was not a very posh locality, and maybe the elites didn’t like staying there either. But that didn’t stop Angelo from asking Gian to arrange for a meetup. Gian did the needful but didn’t want to be associated with whatever they were planning to do. Instead of Nadia, another girl named Rosaria came this time. The girls were attracted by the extravagance and opulence of these boys. They were attracted to the fancy cars they drove and the huge mansions they lived in. There is a stereotype in our society that a privileged person never indulges in any activity that is prohibited by the law. Often it is seen that we create a good perception about anyone who is carrying himself properly, looks decent and comes from a well to do family, even if we do not know anything about him or his past.

Donatella, too, judged the book by its cover and didn’t know what she was signing into. Angelo and Gianni took Rosaria and Donatella to a mansion, which they said belonged to Carlo. The girls couldn’t believe their eyes. They had never seen such a beautiful bungalow in their whole lives. This scene is also indicative of the class conflict that existed in Italy in the 1970s. There were a lot of economic antagonists who enacted to bridge the gap, but they still had a long way to go. Rosaria said that she would like to go back home as it was getting late, but Angelo and Gianni had other plans. They pointed a gun at the girls and confined them in the bathroom. To the horror of the girls, they realized what the real plan of the boys was. They told the girls that they belonged to the Marsigliesi gang. They sexually abused the girls, and soon Andrea Ghira, who was recently released from jail, joined them. The girls were abused, beaten, and molested to the point that one of them couldn’t survive the pain and violence inflicted on her. The boys killed Rosaria by drowning her in the bathtub, and Donatella could hear the muffled voice of her friend, crying for help and requesting the perpetrators to have some mercy on her. She never imagined in her lifetime that she would be subjected to something like this. She begged the boys, but they kept on drugging and molesting her. Donatella pretended to be dead, and the boys prepared to dispose of both the bodies. Angelo and Gianni left both the bodies in the trunk of their car, thinking that they would dispose of them later in the night. Call it fate, luck, or sheer fortune, somebody heard Donatella’s call for help and informed the police. Donatella survived, and Andrea, Angelo, and Gianni were caught by the police.

Is It Based On True Events?

Unfortunately, yes, “The Catholic School” is based on true events that happened in the year 1975. The incident came to be known as the Circeo Massacre, and as put by Edoardo Albinati himself, it changed everything henceforth. According to the horrendous laws that prevailed in the country during that time, rape was not considered a crime against a person. It was considered to be a crime against public morality. So basically, it was seen as an act that hurt the sentiments of society but not as an act that destroyed a person’s life and made her suffer from the trauma. The meaning of this is that the legal justice system didn’t have strong deterrent measures against those who committed rape as it has today. A girl had died, and society just considered it to be an immoral act, and nothing more. The young boys were more scared to speak against religion than to outrage the modesty of a woman. It took the Italian government approximately 20 more years to recognize that rape was a crime against a person too. Andrea, Angelo, and Gianni were sentenced to life. Andrea died in 1994 when he was escaping arrest. Till that time, he lived like a fugitive on the run. Angelo Izzo was released in the year 2005 for apparently good conduct, but he mocked the legal machinery of the country by committing two more murders as soon as he was released. 

Gianni Guido was released in 2009 and has been a free citizen of the country since then. Often, the puppet show in a democracy is orchestrated by the rich and powerful. Donatella Colasanti died in 2005 at the age of 47. What was the fault of the innocent girls? Was it their fault that they were too naive to take a leap of faith and believe in the bona fide intentions of the boys? Was it their fault to be born in a country that didn’t understand the consequences of going through a traumatizing experience and what it did to a person? Or maybe it was their fault to be born as girls in a male-dominated society. Edoardo Albinati says in his novel, “The Catholic School,” that being born a boy is like an incurable disease. The author recounts that after many years, since the Circeo Massacre, he met Gioacchino Rummo, who had become a psychiatrist. He found that there was something wrong with each and every fragment of society. Everybody, especially the boys, was suffering from some kind of mental disorder. You could see it in the eyes of Angelo, that incessant need to be in control and how he believed that he was entitled to do that. Not even once did the boys flinch when they were torturing the two girls. It said a lot about their mental state. The families were dysfunctional, and the individuals that were brought up in these families also grew up to be obnoxious in some or the other way. A lot of things that you know were blatantly not right were accepted in a very casual manner. The catholic school, the ardent devotees, and the so-called pious people were responsible for this kind of outcome. According to the teachings of the church, one was forced to not feel a certain way, but nonetheless, everybody indulged in everything that was prohibited by religion. The outcome was: Gays and homosexuals were scorned, women were objectified, males were considered superior to everybody else, and the children were molded in a fashion that unanimously validated the oppressive and unjust behavior. The Circeo Massacre was an example of the hypocrisy that exists in our society, the crumbling man-made systems and how they are molded according to the convenience of the few who exercise control.

 “The Catholic School” is a 2022 Drama Thriller film directed by Stefano Mordini.

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‘the catholic school’ (‘la scuola cattolica’): film review | venice 2021.

September 20, 2021

By Lovia Gyarkye

In Stefano Mordini’s film, based on Edoardo Albinati’s fact-based novel of the same name, a group of young, privileged men commit a disturbing crime.

The story starts like this: A woman hears a noise — it sounds like a cry for help — from her apartment in a tony neighborhood in Rome and calls the police. The uniformed officers arrive and find two teenage girls locked in the trunk of a Fiat 127, their bodies brutally maimed and scarred. One of them, 17-year-old Donatella Colasanti, is shaken but alive; the other, 19-year-old Rosaria Lopez, is dead. Two of their attackers have been found and the other, perhaps tipped off, has fled.

The Circeo massacre, as the rape and murder would come to be known, shook Italian society. It was 1975 and the aggressive crime, committed by three young men who attended San Leone Magno, a prestigious all-boys Catholic high school, was a reminder of the misogyny, classism and fascism festering within the nation. Eduardo Albinati chronicled this harrowing tale in his 2016 novel,  The Catholic School . Albinati attended the same school as the accused, and his semi-autographical story uses the crime as a lens for examining the institution’s toxic environment and inherent contradictions. In the film version, which premiered at Venice, Italian director Stefano Mordini translates Albinati’s novel into an uneven and at times distressing cinematic experience.

The film begins with a haunting scene of the beautiful boys of this Catholic school performing exercise drills near a swimming pool — a mesmerizing shot that announces the movie’s beguiling visual language. Through voiceover narration, Edo (Emanuele Maria Di Stefano) introduces the students of this exclusive institution. Although the film need focus on only three of them,  The Catholic School  indulges in detailing the lives of many of the students, perhaps in an attempt to paint a portrait of the world they inhabited.

Arbus (Giulio Fochetti) is the smartest and the most skeptical when it comes to God and the school. He wants to escape by graduating early. His misanthropy grants him an unmatched level of respect and spares him from bullying, separating him from his classmates. On the other side of the religious spectrum is Gioacchino (Andrea Lintozzi), a quiet boy who grew up in a pious home. Next comes Picchatello (Alessandro Cantalini), a menace whose attractive mother (Jasmine Trinca) is sleeping with his classmate, the effortlessly cool Stefano Jervi (Guido Quaglione).

The boys who will later rape and abuse Donatella (Benedetta Porcaroli) and Rosaria (Federica Torchetti) are, in no special order, Angelo (Luca Vergoni), the one with a scary appetite for violence; Andrea (Giulio Pranno), whose menacing reputation makes him a mysterious and well-respected figure at school; and Gianni (Francesco Cavallo), a lanky, longhaired boy whose tense relationship with his powerful father becomes one of the film’s focus points. Despite their differences in age and temperament, these boys are all governed by the unspoken rules of masculinity. Their beliefs and behaviors are merely attempts to perform what they think it means to be a man. I’d be remiss if I did not mention the strength of the cast. Strong performances from the actors playing the students really hold the film together.

The Catholic School  announces itself as a timeline of events before the Circeo massacre, yet its opening sequences feel more like a series of character studies, sketches that reveal how the school and larger community operate. With Edo as our guide, we come to understand, often with a bit of a heavy hand, the secrets, deception and money powering relationships. Mordini looks closely at and sensitively explores the boys’ home lives, using their interactions with their parents and siblings to paint a portrait of a monied community. It becomes increasingly clear that the parents have sent their boys to this institution not for an education, but for refuge. Here, under the guidance of stern administrators, their boys will be safe from terrible influences. Yet the sinister truth is that their sons are the violent ones.

It’s when  The Catholic School  changes course and begins to focus on Angelo, Andrea and Gianni that it wobbles. The characters we had spent so much time with suddenly seem irrelevant, and the time stamps — which jump around and have no coherent order — make it difficult to follow the basic chronology of events. What drives the boys to commit such a heinous act is not entirely clear either. The film itself starts to feel like two separate projects related only by Edo’s voiceover and cinematographer Luigi Martinucci’s rich, golden visuals.

Of course, there are ways for the film to both psychoanalyze the community and retell this harrowing story, but Mordini’s screenplay, co-written with Massimo Gaudioso and Luca Infascelli, struggles to do so. If the goal were to underscore how the supposed values of this upper-middle-class bunch collapsed, it might have made more sense to begin the film with its ending, and then spend more time on what happened after the girls were found.

The narrative’s women, who seem like the real victims of the community’s unspoken rules and structure, are shortchanged here. While it’s interesting to see how the mothers and sisters of these students navigate a repressive, hyper-masculine society, it’s a shame that Donatella and Rosaria receive very little attention beyond Mordini’s indulgent third act, which focuses on the mechanics of their torture. Considering their outsize impact on Italian society (especially Donatella, who dedicated her life to fighting for justice), this framing not only feels too shallow, but it seemingly reinforces the kind of misogyny  The Catholic School  seeks to point out.

The Catholic School

THE BOTTOM LINE: A chilling story told in a disjointed manner.

Venue:  Venice Film Festival  (Out of Competition) Cast: Benedetta Porcaroli, Giulio Pranno, Emanuele Maria Di Stefano, Giulio Fochetti, Leonardo Ragazzini Director: Stefano Mordini Screenwriters: Massimo Gaudioso, Luca Infascelli, Stefano Mordini

1 hour 46 minutes

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/the-catholic-school-review-venice-2021-1235017222/

VENICE 2021 Out of Competition

Review: The Catholic School

by  Camillo De Marco

07/09/2021 - VENICE 2021: Stefano Mordini’s film about the origins of a historic episode of violence against women fails to tackle this vital issue with sufficient maturity

“To be born male is an incurable illness”: this is one of the key phrases to feature in the novel by Edoardo Albinati upon which Stefano Mordini has based his homonymous film The Catholic School   [ + see also: trailer interview: Stefano Mordini film profile ] , presented out of competition in a world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival . It’s a novel which drills down into the hell that is violence against women, inspired by a true Italian crime known as the Circeo Massacre, which served as a watershed moment between two eras on an issue which is now highly topical. On the night of 29 September 1975, three Roman boys - Angelo Izzo, Gianni Guido and Andrea Ghira - lured two girls who trusted them and who came from the city outskirts to a house by the sea, before torturing and raping them all night long. Then, believing them to be dead, they abandoned them in the boot of a car in Rome. Only one of the girls survived. In the aftermath of this tragedy the law on physical violence changed, with the latter no longer considered a crime against public decency but a crime against one’s person.

Albinati was at school - specifically the San Leone Magno establishment in a residential area of Rome - with the three boys who carried out the massacre. The writer didn’t feel it necessary to write about the crime itself, opting instead to explore day to day life as it was back then, as well as examining the boys’ schoolmates and the teachers at the Catholic school, starting with the childhood of the former and describing their transition from wild teens to ferocious assassins. It’s a reconstruction of evil from its root causes, which is, moreover, the same approach taken by the film’s screenwriters Massimo Gaudioso , Luca Infascelli and director Mordini. By way of the voice-over delivered by protagonist-observer Edoardo ( Emanuele Maria Di Stefano ), the film follows the first generation to have enjoyed total freedom, homing in on those who received a Catholic education from a school whose pillars are “persuade, threaten, punish”, and where Christian values are taught to youngsters for whom violence is the order of the day. To overcome or be overcome, to lie in order to be accepted, to never really be yourself, to take an unhealthy and warped view of sexuality. Outside of school, these Catholic families display hypocrisy (betraying one another, hiding their sexual orientations) as well as disinterest, and are, for the most part, absent, believing themselves protected by certainties and values which are actually crumbling around them.

Punctuated by investigative-cinema-style titles such as “six months earlier” and ”130 hours earlier”, aimed at forging a link between past and present in a relentless toing and froing which risks confusing easily distracted viewers, the film does demonstrates Warner’s noteworthy commitment to production, drawing out an entire generation of young actors – in addition to Di Stefano, there’s Giulio Fochetti, Leonardo Ragazzini, Alessandro Cantalini, Andrea Lintozzi, Guido Quaglione, Federica Torchetti, Luca Vergoni, Francesco Cavallo, Angelica Elli, Beatrice Spat a and Giulio Tropea – and placing them alongside the more famous names of Valeria Golino, Riccardo Scamarcio, Jasmine Trinca, Benedetta Porcaroli, Giulio Pranno, Fausto Russo Alesi, Fabrizio Gifuni and Valentina Cervi . But the directorial approach taken by Mordini, who is now on his seventh feature, seems to lack the maturity required to tackle such a crucial matter. Instead, he conforms to TV tastes and only examines the surplus of characters involved in the affair at surface level. The movie fails to establish a sufficiently solid and convincing link between the Catholic school of the film’s title and the boys’ urge to violently overpower their victims, and it also glosses over the fascist circles frequented by the perpetrators of the massacre. In short, it fails to paint the picture which the film’s historic setting required and deserved.

It’s not that the movie should betray the novel, which is composed of 1,200 pages of reflections and a thousand different narrative streams, but it could have derived an equally powerful film interpretation which might have helped younger, cinema-going generations to fight against sexist stereotypes and moralism; a task which the long, savage and heavy-handed final minutes of the film dedicated to the Circeo tragedy fail to accomplish.

The Catholic School is a Warner Bros. Entertainment Italia and Picomedia production. Distribution in Italy (7 October) is in the hands of Warner Bros. Pictures .

(Translated from Italian)

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Parents' guide to, the catholic school.

• Common Sense Says
• Parents Say 1 Review
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Common Sense Media Review

Violent, misogynist, true-life Italian murder-rape tale.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that The Catholic School is based on true events in 1975 Italy, when privileged high school boys kidnapped and raped two girls, murdering one of them, in a sadistic spree and hideous display of toxic masculinity, just for fun. This is told in a bizarre chronological jumble…

Why Age 17+?

Women are kidnapped, beaten, tortured, drugged, raped at gunpoint. One is murder

Teens attempt to have consensual sex and in some cases do. A mom is found in bed

"F--k," "s--t," "screw," "f--got," "d--k," "whore," "p---y," and "bitch."

Cigarettes and alcohol are used. Kidnappers inject women with drugs.

Any Positive Content?

The action takes place in Italy with an Italian cast. A gay youth is bullied. A

Society, faith, and familial pressure turn boys into malevolent men. Never be a

The only teens with compassion do nothing to stand up against bullies.

Violence & Scariness

Women are kidnapped, beaten, tortured, drugged, raped at gunpoint. One is murdered. Kicking and beating. Bruised faces and bodies. Women are forced to strip; rapes take place off-screen. High school-age boys have sex with young girls. A father hits his son. A macho father chides his son for being too emotional when he shoots while hunting. A painting of Jesus being beaten is discussed; it's suggested that evil, or the devil, motivates even the best in people. Jesus is said to be as much a perpetrator as a victim. Bullies flog a fellow student until his back is covered in welts. He seems to be sexually aroused by the attack. A student calls Adolph Hitler the greatest man in history. A youth pretends to attack his sleeping mother with a ceremonial sword. Boys laughingly refer to girls they raped as "pieces of meat." At the time of this incident, in Italian law rape wasn't considered a crime against a person but rather a crime against public morality; 20 years later the law changed. One perpetrator was released early from his life sentence for good conduct; he then killed two more women.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Teens attempt to have consensual sex and in some cases do. A mom is found in bed with a younger man. A dad is found kissing another man. A priest is seen picking up a sex worker. A teenage girl is seen masturbating under the covers. A gay student reaches under the desk during class to fondle another boy's crotch. Male and female full-frontal nudity.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Diverse Representations

The action takes place in Italy with an Italian cast. A gay youth is bullied. A husband and father publicly announces he's gay and leaves his family.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Positive Messages

Society, faith, and familial pressure turn boys into malevolent men. Never be a snitch. Those who hurt others hurt themselves, too.

Positive Role Models

Parents need to know that The Catholic School is based on true events in 1975 Italy, when privileged high school boys kidnapped and raped two girls, murdering one of them, in a sadistic spree and hideous display of toxic masculinity, just for fun. This is told in a bizarre chronological jumble. Consensual clothed sex is seen. The rapes are off-screen but sounds of pain are heard. Women are kicked, punched, and shot up with drugs. Students flog a fellow student until his back is covered in welts. He seems to be sexually aroused by the attack. A student calls Adolph Hitler the greatest man in history. Boys laughingly refer to girls they raped as "pieces of meat." Male and female full-frontal nudity is seen. A mom is found in bed with a younger man. A dad is found kissing another man. A priest is seen picking up a sex worker. A teenage girl is seen masturbating under the covers. A gay student reaches under the desk during class to fondle another boy's crotch. Language includes "f--k," "s--t," "screw," "f--got," "d--k," "whore," "p---y," and "bitch." Cigarettes and alcohol are used. In Italian with English subtitles. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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• Parents say (1)

Based on 1 parent review

Do your own judgement about the movie

What's the story.

Because the horrific true event THE CATHOLIC SCHOOL relentlessly moves toward is always looming ahead, all the jumping back and forth in time still points us toward the moment two privileged students, with the aid of a young ex-con, kidnap two girls, torture, drug, and rape them, eventually killing one. Views of their home lives, their struggles at school, and their personal quirks all lead to the sexual violence. The killers laughingly hope to murder both girls, but one survives. The rapist-killers were all given life sentences. One of them was released early from his life sentence for good conduct; he then killed two more women.

Is It Any Good?

It's difficult to see why The Catholic School needed to be made. It doesn't sit right that a story based on a heinous real-life crime implies that hideous acts of violence committed by teenage boys are attributable to the education they received at an elite parochial school. The movie is based on a prize-winning novelized version of the events written by Edoardo Albinati, who went to the title school, which he lists as a co-conspirator to the criminals along with families, fascism, and, mostly, the "requirements" of masculinity. Each of these boxes are dutifully ticked off in the movie, but no real connections are made between them and the barbarous acts that ensue. An unsafe, treacherous, violent society is inevitable, according to this view, a premise the movie scarcely questions (one or two gentle boys serve as exemplars of niceness).

Apart from its confusing structure and the lack of a main character, the movie's worst crime is that it seems designed to let the boys off the hook. A religious institution is to blame. Hypocrite parents are to blame. Priests who solicit sex workers are to blame. A corrupt society with fascist tendencies is to blame. A narrator explains that he can't be himself; he always has to say he agrees with the dominant and crude others to be accepted by the crowd. If he doesn't, he exposes his weakness, and that will make him a victim instead of an accepted member in good standing. But this is the framework of adolescence everywhere, and it doesn't automatically come with built-in rape and murder. It takes courage to say no and refuse to go along, a point that is never made here. Instead, straight from the book, it quotes, "Being born a boy is an incurable disease." For the most part, this just feels like an excuse for lingering voyeuristic views of naked girls with bruised breasts and faces. Women here are all ineffective in their lives, "evil" temptresses who deserve contempt, subservient and unhappy wives seeking sex with younger men or enduring the flings of a homosexual husband. It's a grim life shown here: You're either a bullying, poisonous male or a surrendered victimized woman.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about why privileged young men might rape women when they could easily date and have sex with women who are willing.

Why do you think this is called The Catholic School ? What was going on at that school that's different from other all-boys schools?

How does the jumbled chronology affect the viewer's ability to follow what's going on? Do you think a straight chronological approach would have been more understandable? Why?

Movie Details

• On DVD or streaming : September 14, 2022
• Cast : Benedetta Porcaroli , Luca Vergoni , Francesco Cavallo
• Director : Stefano Mordini
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : Netflix
• Genre : Drama
• Run time : 106 minutes
• MPAA rating : NR
• Last updated : February 17, 2023

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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Netflix’s The Catholic School: Is the Movie Based on Real People?

Directed by Stefano Mordini, Netflix’s crime drama movie ‘The Catholic School’ revolves around the male students of a renowned Catholic school in Rome, exploring their lives and how multiple students of the institution stoop into brutal acts of violence. Originally titled ‘La Scuola Cattolica,’ the Italian film primarily follows Angelo Izzo and Gianni Guido, whose actions are explored through the POV of their classmate, Edoardo Albinati.

Along with a relatable and realistic depiction of school years, the coming-of-age film tries to unravel the triggers behind the crimes Angelo and Gianni commit upon teaming up with another boy. Naturally, viewers must be intrigued about whether the story has real-life roots. Let us provide the answers!

The Catholic School: Inspired by a Horrific True Event

Yes, ‘The Catholic School’ is based on a true story. The movie is an adaptation of the eponymous semi-autobiographical coming-of-age novel written by Edoardo Albinati, the real-life counterpart of the eponymous character. It revolves around the “Circeo Massacre,” committed by Angelo Izzo, Giovanni “Gianni” Guido, and Andrea Ghira. Angelo and Gianni studied with Edoardo at the time of the massacre. In September 1975, the duo first met Donatella Colasanti and Rosaria Lopez through a friend and planned to meet again.

On September 29, 1975, Angelo and Gianni led Donatella and Rosaria to a villa owned by Andrea Ghira’s family, located in San Felice Circeo, in the Lazio region of Italy. As per reports, both men then started to make sexual advances toward the two girls. Gianni threatened them with a gun when they didn’t comply and locked them up in a bathroom.

Angelo and Gianni were later joined by Andrea Ghira, who introduced himself to Donatella and Rosaria as Jacques Berenguer, the leader of the Marsigliesi clan. The three raped and tortured Donatella and Rosaria for 35 hours and reportedly drugged the two girls.

After cruelly raping Rosaria, Angelo, Gianni, and Andrea allegedly killed her by beating and drowning her in a bathtub. Furthermore, they reportedly tried to kill Donatella by strangling her, only for her to pretend that she was dead. The three friends then covered Rosaria’s dead body and Donatella with plastic and put them in the trunk of a Fiat 127 car, driving it to Rome. When the murderers were away from the vehicle, Donatella made sounds, earning the attention of a night watchman.

Soon, the Carabinieri officials arrived at the scene, and Gianni and Angelo were arrested in no time. However, Andrea ran away before the officials could apprehend him. In July 1976, the trio was sentenced to life imprisonment. Andrea was still on the run at the time of the sentence; he lived in Spain under a false identity and died in 1994 due to an overdose. Angelo was released in 2005 on parole for good conduct, only to kill two women during the parole period. In 2007, he was sentenced again to life imprisonment.

Lastly, Gianni became a free man in 2009 due to a reduced sentence, much to the dismay of Rosaria’s family. Meanwhile, on December 30, 2005, Donatella died from breast cancer at age 47. Even though Edoardo Albinati’s source material is based on a true story, creative liberties were taken by the author, which must have got reflected in the film as well.

“The Catholic School is based on events that actually happened, events to which, in part, I was a direct eyewitness. Working from those actual events, I’ve intertwined episodes and characters with varying percentages of fiction: some are concocted out of whole cloth, others owe a considerable debt to things that actually took place, to people who exist or once did,” the author wrote in the source text.

As far as director Stefano Mordini was concerned, ‘The Catholic School’ isn’t a film that solely addresses the lives and crimes of Angelo, Gianni, and Andrea. He had even omitted the fascist connections of the three murderers. In an interview in September 2021, the director revealed that he eliminated the fascist references to strictly address the patriarchal notion of using and seeing women as “objects.” Nevertheless, his depiction of the actual “Circeo massacre” is startling and heartwrenching.

Read More: Where Was Netflix’s The Catholic School Filmed?

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