PARIS (CWNews.com) – The Greek director whose film's poster shows a crucifix bent into a swastika said on Thursday that he will review the poster after an international outcry.
Constantin Costa-Gavras is the director of Amen, a film adaptation of Rudolf Hochhuth's 1963 play The Deputy that is widely seen as the first attempt to cast Pope Pius XII as a villain in the World War II Nazi persecution of Jews, despite earlier praise from Jews and Israel for the Pope's wartime actions. The movie is vying for the Golden Bear best picture award at this year's Berlin film festival.
Earlier this week the French bishops' conference denounced the poster as an attack on religion and called it “intolerable.”
Costa-Gavras told the French newspaper Le Monde, “A poster is meant to draw attention, perhaps to provoke a short debate, but the real debate should be about the content of the film.” The poster shows a red crucifix on a black background– the colors of a bishop's traditional clothing– twisted into the shape of a swastika. Costa-Gavras said he was surprised at the negative reaction to the poster, but defended the content of his film.
“It's a film that looks at the cohabitation between the Nazis and the Churches. That's a historical truth,” he claimed, despite many historians' assertions otherwise. The director added that he didn't mean to hurt the feelings of Catholics in any case.
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