USA: PEDRO ALMODOVAR ADDRESSES THE CATHOLIC CHURCH CHILD ABUSE SCANDAL IN FILM "BAD EDUCATION"

Record ID: 389647

  • Title: USA: PEDRO ALMODOVAR ADDRESSES THE CATHOLIC CHURCH CHILD ABUSE SCANDAL IN FILM "BAD EDUCATION"
  • Date: 22nd November 2004
  • Summary: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES (RECENT) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) SOUNDBITE (English) GAEL GARCIA BERNAL SAYING: "The mixture of working with Pedro Almodovar, the mixture of also doing characters, of telling the story, of feeling how important the issues are, just a mixture of everything."
  • Embargoed: 7th December 2004 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES / VARIOUS FILM LOCATIONS
  • Country: USA
  • Reuters ID: LVA4U7LHW20TAAYXN3MJNWP77MVE
  • Story Text: In "Bad Education", writer/director Pedro Almodovar tells the story of two Spanish boys, Ignacio and Enrique, who fall in love while attending a religious school in the early 1960's. Ignacio is sexually abused by an obsessed Catholic priest who has Enrique expelled so as to not have to compete with him. The movie depicts the fates of characters through the 70's and 80's as they face death, deception and revenge.
    Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal ("The Motorcycle Diaries") stars as Ignacio's younger brother Angel who has written a script about his brother and is desperate to portray him in the film. He says it was an easy choice to sign on for the film.
    "It was such a complex and challenging film to make that it excited me a lot to do it, why not", Bernal says.
    Bernal also had to portray three different characters in the film including a female impersonator in a small town club. He says it was this challenge as well as working with Almodovar that made the film exciting.
    "The mixture of working with Pedro Almodovar, the mixture of also doing characters, of telling the story, of feeling how important the issues are, just a mixture of everything," Bernal says.
    The issue of child sex abuse in the Catholic Church and its impact on the victims after they become adults is a major part of the story in "Bad Education." Bernal says their depiction cannot even come close to the true horror of what such abuse must have been like.
    "I mean the institutions, the abuse of playing with other people's faith and utilizing that for your own pleasure in this case, is incredibly, it's perhaps one of the most, it's not a sin, it's not a bad thing, I think it's a crime, you know. I think it's one of the most cowardly crimes and actually fiction doesn't even get close to the harrowing reality," Bernal says.
    "Bad Education" is currently open in theatres throughout North America.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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