Sorrentino's 'The Hand of God' a tale of personal loss, hope

Italian director Paolo Sorrentino is turning the camera on his own personal tragedy

VENICE -- Italian director Paolo Sorrentino has profiled some powerful figures over the years, from real-life Italian premiers to fictional popes, as well as his adopted Rome in the Oscar-winner “The Great Beauty.” But in his newest release, Sorrentino turns the camera on his own personal tragedy. Sorrentino’s autobiographical “The Hand of God,” which premieres Thursday at the Venice Film Festival, recounts how his otherwise normal childhood in 1980s Naples was upended by the sudden, accidental death of his parents and how a certain athlete had an unintentional role in saving his life. He has spoken before about the trauma — both his parents died of carbon monoxide poisoning at the family’s ski house when Sorrentino was 16. But “The Hand of God” is the film Sorrentino felt he always had to make, and finally found the right moment after he turned 50 and the pandemic interrupted other projects. “I thought it might be helpful, since I have always remained stuck at that age (16), at the pain of that age,” Sorrentino said in an interview Wednesday. “I never was able to budge from that.”