The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September 2022 and played again at the Mammoth Film Festival in early March 2023.
LaBeouf, who plays the role of Padre Pio, spent four months living with Capuchin friars while preparing for the film.
The film features a subplot about the rise of fascism in Italy, AP reported, focusing on the 1920 massacre of 14 people in the village of San Giovanni Rotondo near the monastery where Padre Pio lived.
Abel Ferrara, who had made a documentary about Padre Pio before working on the movie the film’s director, told AP he felt that the intersection between the saint’s spiritual battles and the political bloodshed at San Giovanni Rotondo made sense as a scope for the film.
“I thought the confluence between the massacre and his stigmata both happening in the same place at the same time … I mean how could you not make a movie about that?” he told the AP.
Ferrara told AP that Church officials and Capuchin friars were supportive of the film project despite his having produced pornography and extremely violent films early in his career.