The Club: When films reveal the ugly truth

Despite many bans, cinema has been questioning religious faith for over half a century.

One of the most acclaimed films of the Berlin Film Festival this year was The Club, which won the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize. Directed by Chilean director Pablo Larrain, the film is about a group of priests living in a remote, kind of semi-retirement home. It turns out they are, in fact, scandal-tainted priests, who have been cast out by the church for pedophilia, political corruption, and even kidnapping the babies of unwed mothers (based on real-life incidents in Chile in 2014).

As far as the church goes, it is out of sight, out of mind. A local, who recognizes one of the priests as the one who had sexually abused him when he was young, publicly denounces him. And the guilty priest commits suicide. A new, young priest is sent to sort out the compounded horror—but there is no easy solution, is there?