The four-part series will feature elderly people sharing their wisdom with young filmmakers.Netflix has announced that it will run an original documentary based on Sharing the Wisdom of Time, a book written by Pope Francis that highlights the gifts that the elderly can offer younger generations.
The four-part series will share the stories of men and women over 70 from around the world, as they relate their hard-won wisdom to filmmakers from their own countries who are under the age of 30.
The series will feature an exclusive interview with Pope Francis, parts of which will be featured in each episode.
The pope’s book was edited by Fr. Antonio Spadaro, director of the Jesuit magazine La Civiltà Cattolica, and published by Loyola Press in 2018.
In the preface of book, Pope Francis writes that “our society has deprived grandparents of their voice.” They have lost their “opportunity to recount their experience, their stories, their lives,” he wrote.
Older people, according to the pope, can offer encouragement to young people in search of meaning in their lives, at that this should be “the grandparent’s mission.”
“I feel that this is what the Lord wants me to say: that there is an alliance between the young and the old,” wrote the Holy Father.
Italian director Simona Ercolani will direct and produce the series, which is expected to be available in 2021.
The book that the documentary series is based on includes testimony from an American veteran of the Second World War, a Syrian grandmother, a former professional Spanish footballer, an African craftsman, and renowned American director Martin Scorcese.
This marks the second time Netflix has invested in programming featuring Pope Francis. In 2019, the streaming service presented The Two Popes, a fictional account of the relationship between Pope Francis and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.
Read more:
Pope calls for an elderly-youth alliance in new book
