The Devils - Ken Russell's Cursed Film Arrives Uncut

In 1634 France, priest Urbain Grandier (Oliver Reed) becomes the target of political and ecclesiastical power. Accused of witchcraft after the alleged demonic possessions of the Ursulines of Loudun, he becomes the focus of a persecution in which faith transforms into a tool of control. It is from this story that Ken Russell derives The Devils, a 1971 work that still retains its provocative force today.

The film has also arrived in Italy and will be screened at the Cinema Godard of the Fondazione Prada in Milan on Saturday, October 24th at 8:30 PM, in the restored 4K Director's Cut, in original English and Latin with subtitles.

A fierce work that censorship could not tame

The film's troubled history is an integral part of its fame. Released in Italy on January 7, 1972, The Devils was seized and heavily censored. Its depiction of religious repression, violence, and fanaticism had exceeded the limits that the era was willing to accept.

The new restoration returns the complete version to the public, reconstructed in 2004 under the supervision of Russell and editor Michael Bradsell, with the collaboration of Mark Kermode and Paul Joyce. The 4K restoration was carried out using the original negative.

Considered by the director himself to be his most overtly political film, The Devils stages a world where power uses the accusation of heresy to eliminate those who obstruct it. Oliver Reed and Vanessa Redgrave lead a baroque and radical narrative, still capable of unsettling audiences. The Milanese screening thus offers the opportunity to rediscover on the big screen a work that for decades was seen in mutilated versions.