RAPITO | KIDNAPPED

In 1858, in the Jewish quarter of Bologna, on the Cardinal's orders, Pope's soldiers break into the Mortara family home to take Edgardo, the family's seven-year-old child. According to a servant girl, the child was secretly baptised at the age of six months because he was believed to be at death's door. The papal law is unappealable: a baptised child must receive a Catholic education. Edgardo's desperate parents are doing everything they can to get their son back. With public opinion and the international Jewish community on the side of the Mortara family, the fight for the child soon takes on a political dimension. The Pope, however, is adamant that the child should not be returned. As Edgardo grows up following the teachings of the Catholic faith, the secular power of the Church begins to decline and the troops of the House of Savoy occupy Rome.