Holy Week, 2001: “The Faithful” crew on filming the Pope
Twenty years ago on this Holy Week, the small, wide-eyed Faithful crew — Annie Berman, Matt Mankins, Marieka Kaye, and Erika Albright — were in Vatican City on a mission to film His Holiness Pope John Paul II in action. Despite having little media experience at this point, the team of 20-somethings managed to get official press passes by the Vatican and a “private audience” with the Pope himself. Though that private audience ended up being in a sea of pilgrims and journalists, as Annie Berman recounted in the film, the experience of being a stone’s throw from His Holiness is still one that sticks with her and her crew to this day.
In honor of Good Friday and the Pope on the anniversary of his passing today, Berman, Mankins, and Kaye reflect on their whirlwind and formative Easter trip to the Vatican.
Marieka Kaye, Still Photographer:
I remember that Easter week being one of the best of my life. I love traveling so much and had never been to Italy, which was an artist’s dream trip. At the time I was a truly scruffy artist living in Brooklyn, thinking I would be starving but creative for the rest of my life. I have no idea how I paid for that trip. My camera was literally an extension of my body at that time.
My most vivid memories include the terror I felt when we attempted to get permission to film with the “real” press in the Vatican for Easter mass. The nun who we met with terrified me, and I felt like the child I really was then. It felt dangerous and challenging — like if she knew what the film really was about we’d be banned from the country forever. Finding out we got press passes was beyond exhilarating — but then the terror returned when we were told we had to wear suits. I think I had to use an emergency credit card from my dad to buy my first and only professional Italian suit.
Standing in the press box with famous photojournalists — there are no words. Seeing the pope lit up by hundreds of flashes will be burned in my memory forever. I took some of my best and most haunting photos that day.
While we had to be professional during filming at the Vatican, and during Easter mass, we spent evenings and times in-between as any 20-something would. At that age, I was always hungering for surreal experiences and I remember reaching the pinnacle when we spent a night with an Italian Elvis cover band — truly the most delightful people one could encounter — as I’ve found to be the case with all the Elvis fans we spent time with to make this film throughout the years. I remember wondering how my life could have led to that moment.
I also remember swimming in fountains, drinking more alcohol than humanly possible for such a scrawny kid, and falling in love with Rome, the culture, food, wine, people, and the friends I traveled with. I’m actually proud of the photos I took during that trip and feel honored to have been able to stand in such a coveted spot during Easter mass that year. I have to laugh thinking about the seasoned professionals around us looking at us kids with press passes, like it was some Candid Camera prank. Although I’ve been back to different parts of Italy, I hope I can return to Rome again, and Easter was such a magical time to be there.
Matt Mankins, Collaborating Producer:
I think I rented a cell phone before leaving Boston so I could stay in contact with work. I had to drive to a small industrial park near the airport and find a nondescript office where I’d pre-arranged the pickup. It wasn’t that much–compared to the by-the-minute charges AT&T was proposing. Surprisingly it worked just fine when we got there.
We got a ride from the airport to our apartment in a Mercedes. Italy was still using the lira and we weren’t super-with it from the long trip. We had a bunch of equipment which is why we wanted to take the car. At the end of the ride there was some back and forth to exchange the money and once we had departed we realized we had overpaid him significantly.
I remember being on the roof of Father Greg’s Roman apartment. There was a giant Versace sign in the background and the occasional rumble of the traffic below.
I remember standing in the crowds at St. Peter’s. I remember the rows and rows of empty seats. We got there early but almost all at once they were full. We split up to figure out how to capture more and especially the Pope as he came into the crowd.
I remember eating gelato and wanting to try every single flavor. Cappuccino for breakfast. I remember needing a suit for Easter, but having nothing fancier than jeans. I went to buy a suit and the tailor notices it’s a little tight around my waist and says “ah, too mucha spaghetti, eh?” I still repeat this when my pants don’t fit.
Above all, I remember having fun. The movie was there as a thing to do, but it was all the other moments that made the trip great. Getting fortune told at Jonathan’s Angles, going to a garage to hear an Elvis band, playing in the fountains, getting lost in Trastevere, confessing to the priest, getting past the Swiss Guards, plotting tomorrow’s next move. I wonder how long we were there? Part of me still is and wants to remain there, replaying that week.
Annie Berman, Writer/Director/Producer:
I really can’t believe this was 20 years ago this week. I remember Matt renting a cell phone and stressing about there not being internet anywhere. He was one of the few people who needed the internet to function for his life to function, at the time. Now, we all seem to depend on it.
I remember how exhilarating it felt when the Pope passed so close by us at the “private audience.” I hadn’t really anticipated that. We were there to film it, not to get swept up in it, but it was hard not to — there was this energy, charisma — that spark. I remember feeling a similar sensation when being in similarly close proximity to the Dalai Lama when he visited my college campus the year before.
I remember we split up, not sure which path the Pope would take on his Popemobile. Marieka and I were in the last row of the first section, Matt in the very front row. And, the Pope happened to pass directly in front of each of us (for us, his entrance — for Matt, his exit). Matt was shooting on the Sony VX2000, Marieka shooting 35 mm film stills, and I was shooting Super 8 film.
I remember the next day finding photographs for sale at a nearby shop by the Vatican’s photographer. There was an image where you see the Pope driving by and Matt in the crowd behind his camera. I found it remarkable that we had become part of it, and that was captured, too.
I remember how pristine the Vatican looked, it had recently been cleaned for the millennium, I think. And how with press passes, we got to walk through corridors and pathways reserved for priests and bishops, things we wouldn’t have had the chance to see. I remember Erika, who was still studying architecture, being the most excited about this as she had studied these parts but never had access to them. For the Easter Sunday mass, we ascended these very very narrow spiral staircases with all of our equipment. I remember it felt like we’d never get to the top. And when we did, there were so many others there — press from around the world, with these telephoto lenses the size of a person. We all stood perched behind the stone saints, looking down at the masses. It felt so otherworldly — like being in Wim Wenders, Wings of Desire — the vantage point of an angel, a bird, a saint . . . God’s eye view.
And thinking, who were we? Who were we to be up here? We weren’t the only ones to have that thought. Baby faced with prosumer equipment, I remember one journalist grabbing at my credentials hanging from my neck to inspect.
I also remember gelato. Lots of gelato. Red wine. And that hot Mediterranean sun. I soaked in that radiance, my body drained from another Bostonian winter.
Only now, looking back on these photos, 20 years later, can I see how young we looked to others. It really was one of those once-in-a-lifetime experiences that “making a movie,” and the sheer gumption that comes with that, made possible.
See more photos from the Holy Week shoot below:
Visit our website to stream “The Faithful” at your leisure, or join us Thursday, April 8 for a live screening and Q&A with Annie Berman and Ralph Burns hosted by the USC School of Cinematic Arts. Click here for more info.
