Brown stated that, 'Paul Verhoeven and David Birke have written an imaginative and spellbinding script that explores the intersection of religion, sexuality, and human ambition in an age of plague and faith.' Verhoeven then went on to clarify his intentions: 'The Blessed Virgin must be deeply infused with a sense of the sacred. Reasons being that he felt too much of the story was focused on sexuality. Soeteman decided to distance himself from being involved with the project so much that he eventually decided to have his name removed from the credits. Gerard Soeteman, who has previously worked with Verhoeven on eight previous films including Turkish Delight (1973), The Fourth Man (1983), and Black Book (2006), replaced Carrière to adapt the non-fiction book Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy which was published in 1986 and written by historian Judith C. The film, then titled Blessed Virgin marked the producer and the director's second collaboration after Elle. In April 2017, producer Saïd Ben Saïd revealed that the third had been the one chosen as Verhoeven's next project.

Virginie Efira as Benedetta Carlini, Lambert Wilson as The Nuncio, Daphne Patakia as Bartolomea, Charlotte Rampling as The Abbess, Olivier Rabourdin, Clotilde Courau, Hervé Pierre, Louise Chevillotte, and Nicolas Gaspar.įollowing the critical and commercial success of Verhoeven's previous film Elle (2016), he went on to develop several projects including one about Jesus based on his own book Jesus of Nazareth, the second project about the French Resistance, and the third one scripted by Jean-Claude Carrière, a medieval story set in a monastery. Benedetta is scheduled to premiere at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival in competition for the Palme d'Or.

Immodest Acts by Judith C. Brown