FRED’s Chiara Nicoletti meets Jake Mahaffy, director of the film FREE IN DEED. The film was presented in the Orizzonti section of the 72nd Venice Film Festival, where it won the award for Best Film.
Based on true events the film find its inspiration in a news story of twelve years ago about an actual faith healing gone wrong. Shot in a documentary style, the story takes place mainly in a church where the protagonist, a single mother with two kids, relies all her hopes to cure her child from autism, in this healer priest’s hands.
FREE IN DEED: Set in the distinctive world of storefront churches, and based on actual events, Free in Deed depicts one man’s attempts to perform a miracle. When a single mother brings her young boy to church for healing, this lonely pentecostal minister is forced to confront the seemingly incurable illness of the child… and his own demons as well. The more he prays, the more things seem to spiral out of his control.
For the first time in its history, the Cannes Film Festival reveals two official posters for its 78th edition, inspired by Claude Lelouch’s 1966 Palme d’Or-winning masterpiece A Man and a Woman.
Alice Rohrwacher has been appointed President of the Caméra d’or Jury at Cannes 2025. Known for her poetic and visionary cinema, Rohrwacher will award the best first feature at the festival’s closing ceremony on May 24.