Holy finocchio!

>> Italian gays and conservative Catholics face off in Joe Balass’s doc The Devil in the Holy Water

by MATTHEW HAYS

It was gay amour that brought Montreal-based filmmaker Joe Balass to the subject for his latest film, The Devil in the Holy Water. He met his Italian boyfriend while in the nation of passion a few years ago, and learned of the plans to hold the gay WorldPride event in Rome in 2000.

But though it would be the first time WorldPride would hold its international pride celebration in the Italian capital, that’s not what drew Balass to the idea of making a documentary. As it turned out, 2000 was the same year that the Vatican was holding the Jubilee, billed as the most important church pilgrimage in modern times. Holy clash of cultures! Balass knew he had the perfect dramatic tension to propel a feature doc.

Vindictive Vatican

In the film, Balass cuts between scenes of Italian life and interviews with WorldPride organizers, a cute young gay couple of native Italians, lots of nuns, a homophobic cardinal and even a far-right-wing anti-gay organizer. Some Italians are extremely supportive of their gay citizens, but others are decidedly ambivalent to the whole idea of a massive gay pride celebration in their capital. As the film progresses, we see the Vatican’s cronies panicking at the notion of their Jubilee coinciding with WorldPride, and their subsequent efforts to deep six the latter. Throughout the film, we also see lighter moments, when Balass bicycles through the gorgeous streets of Rome alongside his hubby.

“At first, I didn’t plan to make this feature length,” says the Iraqi-born Balass. “But I wanted to bring all the dimensions to the story, to capture the evolution of how it’s going on. I couldn’t have done either the Jubilee or WorldPride justice without going feature length. And I made the decision early on not to focus on one, but to show how both coexisted.”
Balass says he was surprised by the right-wing type he landed an interview with, Alberto Cortegianni, a spokesperson for an Italian neocon group. Cortegianni discusses his belief that Catholics are threatened by Jews, the Freemasons and gays and lesbians. “He was very young and well educated, I really didn’t expect something quite so conservative from someone like him,” Balass says. “There’s no sense of political correctness in Italy. People just say what they want.”

When in Rome…

Balass says much of Italy is very laid back. “Open signs of gay affection between men or women is not rare, and people aren’t anxious about it there. When driving, people run through red lights all the time. There’s a different attitude about life.” But he adds that politically, things are much more conservative, saying the fight over gay rights, and gay marriage in particular, is a last stand of sorts for the Vatican (which still wields an awful lot of influence). One of the film’s strongest scenes has a high-ranking cardinal attempt to defend his position on the WorldPride events. “The church feels that it lost on divorce, it lost on abortion,” Balass says of their anti-gay stance. “They feel they can’t let go on this one. On a human level, Italians are very tolerant. But I think the sanctity of marriage is something which will be fought over there, a fight that will last a lot longer than in Canada, France, Spain or America even.”

Though things end on a peaceful note, Balass says the threat of partial cancellation, if not outright violence, hung over the WorldPride festivities right up to the last minute. “The authorities were not granting permission for various events till the very last minute. This made things very chaotic for organizers. The march itself was granted a mere half a block, until the final moment, when organizers learned they could march to the Coliseum.
“There was a constant threat of counter demonstrations by the far right and the possibility of violence. It was very lucky things turned out as well as they did.” :

The Devil in the Holy Water screens at the NFB on Tuesday, March 19, at 9pm and Wednesday and Thursday, March 20–21 at 7pm and 9pm