The film, which has got a respectable 7.7 rating on the IMDB website, was first released in Spain in early October following runs at the Cannes Film Festival and the Toronto Film Festival. It will shortly be released in Israel, Lebanon and France but so far there is no indication of when it will be released in other countries – including Malta.

But a group of Italians fear that it will not be released in their country and they have set up a Facebook page with over 5,600 members as well as the petition.

“Many of us think that the delays for distribution are more political than technical, especially when, after the box office success in Spain, there is still no news for distribution in Italy. Informal contacts in the industry revealed that companies were worried about Vatican reactions, since the story is about Hypatia, the neoplatonic ("pagan") victim of Christian Fundamentalism,” group spokesman Dana Lloyd Thomas told www.di-ve.com after coming across its interview with the film’s director, Alejandro Amenabar.

The petition is being sent to Canal + España, Cinebiss, Himenóptero, Mod Producciones, Telecinco Cinema and Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation. It says: “The disturbing rumour that Agorà will not be released in Italy, because of the lack of interest on the part of our national distributors, has led us to begin this petition in order to prove to you, and to the Italian media, that a large number of individuals were looking forward to its theatrical release.

“We ask that you intervene and that you succeed in bringing this movie to our country and show the Italian people the impressive life of this woman, the violence of the Early Church (a historical period that, due to obvious reasons, is very much ignored by the average citizen) and the socio-political situation in one of the greatest cities of antiquity, Alexandria.”

http://www.petitiononline.com/agorait/petition.html
 

Related links

• Amenabar aims for the stars

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