Paolo Sorrentino’s "The Young Pope" trailer features Jude Law (video)

 September 5, 2016 - 12:29 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - A new trailer for "The Young Pope" has been released while the series was premiered at the 2016 Venice Film Festival. Jude Law portrays the title character, Lenny Belardo a.k.a. Pius XIII, who is the first American Pope in history, AceShowbiz said.

The sneak peek highlights a turbulence that he'll face as a cardinal challenges his papacy. "He's just a blue-eyed kid. I was supposed to be pope," the cardinal says. Lenny, meanwhile, is ready to "wage a war without end" against his dissenters. "They chose a pope they didn't know, and today they begin to understand," he adds.

Lenny himself is portrayed as a complicated man as the video describes him as a saint, a sinner, a contradictory, a revolutionary and an unconventional pope. "I see Chris' reflection in you," says Diane Keaton's Sister Mary, an American nun living in the Vatican.

The new series made in a joint production with HBO, Sky and France's Canal Plus is directed by Oscar-winning director Paolo Sorrentino. He says that the series is "the clear signs of God's existence. The clear signs of God's absence. How faith can be searched for and lost. The greatness of holiness, so great as to be unbearable when you are fighting temptations and when all you can do is to yield to them."

The show will capture "the inner struggle between the huge responsibility of the Head of the Catholic Church and the miseries of the simple man that fate (or the Holy Spirit) chose as Pontiff. Finally, how to handle and manipulate power in a state whose dogma and moral imperative is the renunciation of power and selfless love towards one's neighbor."

Also starring James Cromwell and Scott Shepherd, the drama series will premiere overseas on Sky on October 27, and is expected to arrive in the U.S. at a later time.