Padre Pio

Padre Pio is set in Italy just after the First World War, as young soldiers return to San Giovanni Rotondo, a poor southern town dominated by the Church and its wealthy landowners. The men come home broken despite victory, and their families are desperate. Into this tense world arrives Padre Pio, a young Capuchin friar beginning his ministry at a remote monastery, who experiences visions and struggles with his own spiritual crisis. Around the time of Italy's first free elections, the town's unrest builds toward a violent confrontation with wider consequences.

Abel Ferrara directed and co-wrote the film with Maurizio Braucci. It is the sixteenth of the seventeen features he has directed in chronological order, following Zeros and Ones and preceding Turn in the Wound. Shia LaBeouf plays Padre Pio, with Cristina Chiriac, Marco Leonardi, Asia Argento, Vincenzo Crea and Luca Lionello in supporting roles. The production was a German, British, Italian and American co-production, made by Carte Blanche, Maze Pictures, Rimsky Productions and Interlinea Films.

Audience response has been limited: on IMDb the film holds a rating of 4.4 out of 10 from roughly 1,800 votes, while on TMDB it sits at 5 out of 10 from a much smaller number of votes. The low scores and modest vote counts indicate little broad enthusiasm, and the film has drawn only a small viewing audience relative to Ferrara's longer career.