The Vatican announced this week that Pope Leo XIV will host dozens of actors and directors at his residence on Saturday as part of the Roman Catholic Church Jubilee celebration, which takes place every quarter century.
Actors expected to attend the ‘World of Cinema’ gathering include Cate Blanchett, Adam Scott, Chris Pine, Viggo Mortensen, Alison Brie and Dave Franco.
Directors Judd Apatow, Spike Lee, George Miller and Gus Van Sant are also expected to attend.
Pope Leo XIV welcomes Hollywood for weekend event
On Tuesday, Variety posted a video of Pope Leo sharing his four favourite films: Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), starring Jimmy Stewart; Robert Wise’s The Sound of Music (1965), starring Julie Andrews; Robert Redford’s Ordinary People (1980), starring Donald Sutherland and Mary Tyler Moore; and Roberto Benigni’s Life Is Beautiful (1997).
“In this Jubilee Year, Pope Leo XIV has expressed his desire to deepen dialogue with the World of Cinema, and in particular with actors and directors, exploring the possibilities that artistic creativity offers to the mission of the Church and the promotion of human values,” the Vatican statement read.
The yearlong Jubilee, a Catholic tradition of penance and forgiveness, began last December and will end in early January 2026. Saturday’s event is promoted by the Church’s culture and education department, along with its communications department and the Vatican Museums.
Pope Leo, who was born in Chicago and is the first pope to hail from the United States, was elected in May to lead the world’s 1.4 billion Roman Catholics. Last week, he met with actor Robert De Niro at the Vatican, and in June, Al Pacino visited with him there.
First meeting of its kind
Saturday’s gathering is the first such meeting of its kind, though Pope Francis, who died in April, hosted comedians from around the world in 2024. Among the attendees were Conan O’Brien, Whoopi Goldberg, Tig Notaro, Stephen Colbert, Chris Rock and Jimmy Fallon.
Pope Leo’s move to connect with the film world could be seen as an extension of one of his predecessor’s interests. In 2013, the year he was elected, Pope Francis founded Scholas Occurrentes, a global educational movement that developed a project for youth communities around the world to create short films highlighting their identities, histories and values.
Martin Scorsese, who had a relationship with Pope Francis, is producing a feature-length documentary titled Aldeas – A New Story as part of that project.
The documentary includes what is said to be Pope Francis’s final on-camera interview, recorded at Vatican City last December, months before his death.
