#sergio tedesco

The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949, Jack Kinney, Clyde Geronimi and James Algar)

Conclave (dir. Edward Berger) x VIFF 2024.

There's an operatic tension to the West German-born Austrian-Swiss director's religious Vatican thriller based on the novel of the same name by bestselling British author Robert Harris. It stars Ralph Fiennes as the cardinal tasked with overseeing the election of the Roman Catholic successor to the recently deceased Pope as he discovers a series of concerning secrets about many of the leading candidates as they vye for power. It's a tightly wound melodrama about a detailed religious electoral process no one really knows about, with strong allegories to the dysfunction of contemporary national elections. No one is guessing that ending either.