SOUND OF FREEDOM Director Calls New Movie CABRINI ‘Transformative’
By Movieguide® Contributor
SOUND OF FREEDOM director Alejandro Monteverde is opening up about his upcoming movie CABRINI.
CABRINI takes viewers through the life of “an Italian immigrant who arrives in New York City in 1889 and is greeted by disease, crime, and impoverished children. Cabrini sets off on a daring mission to convince the hostile mayor to secure housing and healthcare for society’s most vulnerable. With broken English and poor health, Cabrini builds an empire of hope unlike anything the world had ever seen.”
Based on a true story, Francesca Cabrini would become “the first American saint of the Catholic Church and one of the most inspiring entrepreneurs in American history…Cabrini devoted her life to fighting for the happiness and health for individuals in the margins of her society.”
Monteverde connected with the film because he, like Cabrini, came to America with nothing.
“I also came here with nothing. I didn’t speak English. I didn’t have any money. I started, the typical cliche, I started washing dishes because you don’t need to speak English to wash a dish,” he told the Catholic News Agency. “I went to school, I educated myself, and it was a journey.”
“This movie is not about immigration because that’s political; this movie is about caring for the immigrant. And that’s a big difference. I have heard so many people that leave inspired to go back and face things that they could have already given up,” he added.
“Movies don’t change the world, [but] movies can transform. This is a transformative film in many ways. It transforms people and the people are the ones that change the world.”
However, Monteverde initially had no intention of directing the film.
“Before I read the script, I was already in my head saying, ‘I’m not going to do this movie,’” he said. “I’m a practicing Catholic but I like to make movies that are very entertaining, and in my head I was like, ‘How could you make an entertaining movie about a nun?’”
But one line of the script changed his mind.
The line read, “You can serve your witness. Or you can serve your purpose. You can’t serve both.”
“Right there, she got me,” Monteverde revealed. “I was like, ‘Wow, this is a woman that speaks with conviction. With power.’ I kept reading and realized that this was a universal story about a woman who happens to be a nun, who happens to be a saint, but what she was fighting for is something that can unite the entire world.”
CABRINI is set to hit theaters on March 8. Please check back to Movieguide.org for the full review later this month.
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