Bellisimo: Critically acclaimed movie Bella touches hearts in Indianapolis

Actors Eduardo Verastegui and Sophie Nyweide face each other on a beach in this still photo taken from the 2007 movie Bella. (Photo courtesy of Metanoia Films)

By Sean Gallagher

When the movie Bella has its national premiere on Oct. 26, it will tell the story of two ordinary people searching for meaning and redemption in their lives.

Two men who collaborated on the film came together three years ago in a Beverly Hills, Calif., church in search of the same thing.

At the time, Leo Severino, a producer and co-writer for Bella, was an executive in Hollywood at Fox Networks Group.

One day, he went to daily Mass at the Church of the Good Shepherd a few blocks from his office.

A faith-filled man, he had been praying for guidance to help him use his position in the entertainment industry to do something good for God.

On that day, Eduardo Verastegui, well-known in Mexico for his starring roles in soap operas but a relative unknown in the U.S., also walked into the church for Mass with the same yearning in his heart.

“He walks in and something in my heart said, ‘Talk to the guy,’ ” said Severino in a recent telephone interview with The Criterion. “And we started talking right then and there. It was absolutely providential. He had been praying for someone in Hollywood to help him, who had the same values and faith.”

The two immediately clicked.

“Within half an hour of speaking, we knew we were going to work together,” said Severino. “And within a month of knowing each other, I was his agent, his manager, his attorney, his publicist, his producer—everything.”

Soon after that, the two helped form a film company whose very name is an expression of their faith: Metanoia Films. “Metanoia” is Greek for “conversion.”

Faith on film with a Hispanic flavor

Considering that Severino and Verastegui’s partnership began after a daily Mass both attended, it’s not surprising that Bella is imbued with faith.

Central to its plot are such core Catholic beliefs as the sacredness of life and the need to protect it, the importance of the family, the sacrificial nature of true love and the dignity of each human person.

But the movie’s faith elements are often interwoven in subtle ways into the Hispanic culture of many of its characters.

According to Severino, this mixture allowed the filmmakers to introduce faith in a natural manner.

“In a Latino culture, it’s very easy to accept the fact that they’re Catholic and have a certain faith because of the culture,” he said. “So just by showing the culture in different ways, you can evangelize without overtly evangelizing. All you’re doing is showing the way these people live.”

This natural blend of faith, culture and the important questions in life into the everyday lives of ordinary people may be one reason why Bella has been so critically acclaimed.

It received the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival’s People’s Choice Award, which several Oscar-winning films have received in the past. And recently at the Heartland Film Festival in Indianapolis, its filmmakers received the Crystal Heart Award for excellence in filmmaking.

Bella takes place in and around New York within a single day and focuses on two ordinary people: a waitress who is unmarried and pregnant, and a chef troubled by demons from his past.

They explore together the twists and turns and ups and downs of their lives. And along the way, they meet other ordinary people with extraordinary stories.

At the end of their day, their lives are very different than they were at the start.

The film was viewed on Oct. 16 at Roncalli High School in Indianapolis by more than 200 parish and archdiocesan leaders.

Father Michael O’Mara, pastor of St. Mary Parish in Indianapolis, has been involved in Hispanic ministry for years. He was on hand for the event and spoke afterward about Bella.

“We [see in the movie] how Hispanics, who aren’t necessarily the richest people in the world, still love life and love each other, how brothers both struggle and love each other, how moms seek … to continue to pull the family together.

“All of that is so real,” Father O’Mara said. “[But] it doesn’t apply only to Hispanics. It applies to everyone.”

Severino said that faith played a role in the film’s universal themes.

“The obvious connection is the dignity of the human person,” he said. “The beauty of our Catholic faith is that we respect the dignity of the human person whether they’re in the womb or they’re in Tijuana or

wherever they are. That’s the primary link. All life is sacred and valuable.”

Pondering questions about life

The sacredness of life was certainly on the mind of St. Bartholomew parishioner Eileen Hartman of Columbus as she watched the film at Roncalli’s auditorium.

One of Bella’s main characters is confronted with an unplanned pregnancy and considers having an abortion.

Hartman, who is the executive director of the Great Lakes Gabriel Project, a parish-based ministry that reaches out to help women in crisis pregnancies, has counseled many women in that character’s position.

“I thought it was a very beautiful film, and it definitely touched my heart,” Hartman said. “I couldn’t help thinking all the way through the film of different women that I’ve worked with.

“I thought it was very real, a very good representation of real life, as far as what the woman [considering abortion] goes through.”

Father O’Mara was thinking about questions of life during the film as well.

He recently returned to Indianapolis after spending several months in the Archdiocese of Guadalajara, Mexico, as part of a clergy exchange program.

While he was there, he witnessed politicians lobbying to make abortion legal in Mexico City and in the state of Jalisco, of which Guadalajara is the capital.

“Little by little, these values that don’t have a respect for human life in the womb are reaching all people because there is a sense that this life is so … small that it is not yet a person,” Father O’Mara said. “[This is] having an impact on the Hispanic person. And we know here in Indianapolis that there are many Hispanic women that are going to the abortion clinics.

“So maybe this movie might be an opportunity to reflect on just how precious human life is.”

Seeking beauty and a different kind of success

Although the message of Bella is important to Severino, making it simply an artistically beautiful film was a high priority too as well as an expression of his Catholic faith.

“God is the author of all beauty, whether it’s a beauty that is a beauty of truth and evangelism and faith or whether it’s a beauty of art and aesthetics,” he said. “He’s an artist, obviously, creating mountains and waterfalls. The Lord created those, and they are beautiful aesthetically.”

Success in Hollywood is ordinarily judged at the box office, not necessarily how beautiful a film is.

For Severino and his colleagues, success is defined differently.

“Our motto from day one has been very clear, ‘We’re not called to be successful. We’re called to be faithful to God,’ ” said Severino, paraphrasing Blessed Teresa of Calcutta. “If the other success comes [in box office sales], then it’s a blessing. But if it doesn’t come, then it’s still a blessing.”

Verastegui experienced this different kind of success firsthand as he prepared for acting in the film.

In order to understand the thoughts and feelings of women who are considering abortion, he went and watched what happened outside an abortion facility.

Sidewalk counselors there persuaded him to speak with a Hispanic couple who came there for an abortion. After spending 45 minutes with them and giving them his cell phone number, they left the facility and chose life for their baby.

Several months later, the day after filming for Bella had finished, Verastegui received a phone call from the couple. Their baby boy had been born the day before, and they asked if they could name their newborn son after him.

Severino said that other stories like Verastegui’s have happened through people seeing Bella.

“To us, those are our living Oscars,” Severino said. “That’s success if we can touch people’s hearts and inspire them in a positive way.” †