Vatican Girl: la scomparsa di Emanuela Orlandi

I have ranked over1200 documents and films and reviewed dozens of them in IMDB. I will tell you that this was the most striking documentary for me thus far.

I do not get why some people complain about this documentary being far too long. Particularly this one covers the story from 1982 to 2019. It reviews all the available credible evidence with the elucidated documentation and testimony of the witnesses. Any less would be harder to ascertain.

Ever since its inception, the foundation of the Vatican, a self-governing nation-state, surrounded by secrecy. One of its priorities is the controlled disbursement of information to the world. After the 2018 - 2019 leaks of Vatican banks' involvement with the Italian Mafia, journalists were able to get a small glimpse of the tirade and the culture of corruption inherent in the bowels of the organization.

This documentary exposes some of these facts and does great justice to the family of Orlandi who have been fighting to find their daughter for the past 40 years. This is a must-watch.

I've appreciated the courage of the journalists and the reconstruction of this very muddy story.

It is a little bit too kitsch in some passages, but it is very useful and well mounted.

I hope that this will contribute to re-open the case and to give some relief to this very suffering family.

It is not known whether this new media attention will even succeed in reopening the judicial investigation, which had been archived for years: "Difficult - declares Pietro Orlandi - until I find a magistrate who wants to put his finger on and start over to get to understand. So far. There was no one. Someone tried. But then he was excluded from the case. The Vatican suits everyone and everyone suits the Vatican.

Premix: as a non-italian, I would have probably given a lower rating. However, everyone living in Italy knows the importance of this story in the Italian "pop" culture, and how important it is to keep talking about it.

The story narrated is incredibly interesting, and the docu-series helps re-ordering the puzzle which has been unfolded in the last 35 years. A puzzle with various and different pieces: a story of a missing girl, a story with intertwined religious and political powers, a story of corruption, a story of a family which never loses faith.

However, although the docu-series lucidly describes all the different theories behind this case, it does not really add anything new to what is already known, a part from the very last new witness in the last episode, giving a sense of "I whish but I couldn't" as soon as the last episode ends.

On the production side, the docu-series is well done, though it was probably way over-streched: some specific episodes received way too much importance, and the cut-scenes were all over the places and way over used throughout all the episodes, ending up boring the viewer.

Nevertheless, if someone is able to overcome these issue, and to focus on the main point of the story, she will be able to better understand what is behind one of the biggest scandal in Vatican's history, and to witness the tragic story of Emanuela Orlandi.

Let's hope the truth will come out sooner or later.

This is an unnerving docuseries. On one side, you have the power of the Church as a monolithic institution; on the other, a family's longstanding plea for justice, accountability and transparency.

The Vatican is not only the seat of Roman Catholicism; it's also an independent city-state with its own head of state who, for all intents and purposes, is a sovereign or autocrat, if you will. Seen against this backdrop, the unexplained disappearance of young Emanuela Orlandi 39 years ago presents to us a great story full of mystery (for many) and angst (for the Orlandi family).

It's a compelling narrative that takes the viewer to different versions of the truth about Emanuela's disappearance none of which is totally conclusive. Journalist Andrea Purgatory and Pietro Orlandi, her older brother, guide us to the different twists that the search for her takes. Here's a family who needs closure but who couldn't have it. The people inside the Vatican who know what happened do not open up even after all these years, and several popes. What kind of humongous secret is the Vatican hiding? What emanates from them is sepulchral silence reminiscent of the Mafia's omerta. The family is stunned when the Pope cryptically tells them that she's in heaven.

The resource persons who grace the series to shed some light into the appearance all agree that the Vatican knows what happened to Emanuela. Will the truth come out? Andrea Purgatori sum it up, thus: no matter how much you try to hide, the truth will always come out.

The docuseries doesn't provide closure but piques our attention and gently reminds us not to forget because Emanuela's case matters.

Let's get rid of one aspect upfront: as several reviews remark, the documentary drags a little here and there; could've been 3 episodes maybe? Yes probably.

But - is this really the point?

No, I done think so. This is a tragic story and had to be told; and re-told over and over again.

The documentary has the big merit of laying on the table all the facts and the underlying theories, from the most credible to the obviously fake, behind the Orlandi case in a rather objective and lucid manner.

And while, as expected, the documentary offers no culprit, it leaves the viewer with a well documented certainty: whatever the truth is, there is only one knowing it: the Vatican. And the Vatican keeps hiding it; and this is an insult to the family, to the justice system and to their faithfuls.

Considering the huge cost in terms of reputation damage this is causing to the Vatican, the benefit of doing it must be bigger. So it must be VERY big.