Harvey Keitel & Sonia Braga Head To ‘Fatima’ – Cannes

Harvey Keitel and Sonia Braga are set to star in Fatima, a project about three children who experience the supernatural and accept their quest to bring a message of peace to the world. Marco Pontecorvo is directing and Arclight Films is launching sales on the project to buyers in Cannes.

Based on a true story, children Jacinta and Francisco Marto along with their older cousin Lucia de Jesus dos Santos, told sceptical elders that they witnessed six apparitions of the Virgin Mary between May 13, 1917 and October 13, 1917. After the Roman Catholic Church validated the children’s visions, it turned Fatima into Portugal’s main pilgrimage site. The shrine is nowadays visited by more than five million people a year.

The younger children died in the 1918-19 European influenza pandemic but their cousin Lucia, died in 2005 at the age of 97. The Virgin Mary is said to have confided three secrets to the children, which were not written down until 1941, when Lucia started writing her memoirs. The first two secrets were interpreted as foretelling a world war and the dangers of Soviet Communism. The third secret was a long kept mystery but was later interpreted as a prediction of the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul. Pope Francis recently made the two younger children saints.

Origin Entertainment’s James T. Volk, Braven Films’ Frida Torresblanco, Rose Pictures’ Rose Ganguzza and Natasha Howes produce the title.

Keitel is repped by The Artists Partnership. Braga is repped by Untitled Entertainment. Pontecorvo is repped by APA.