Bella was a delightful film.
John Zmirak writes at The Stream about an incident relating to Rosica, Salt + Light and the producers of Bella and the Toronto International Film Festival.
"We were driving to his studios when I got a phone call out of the blue. On the line was a 20-something employee at Salt and Light. She was crying. She told us that Father Rosica’s motives weren’t pure. That he didn’t like us or our film, and he intended to air our interview that very week. That would have been during the Festival, which then we’d be sure to lose.
I got off the phone, kind of skeptical. Would a priest really do something like that? Would a journalist break an embargo he’d promised to respect? I talked the question over with the other producers. At last we agreed. To be on the safe side, we would cancel the interview.
We turned the car around and I called Father Rosica. I told him that our schedule wouldn’t permit an interview after all.
He got violently angry, and shouted that he’d been counting on the interview to fill air time that same week. We’d left a hole in his broadcast schedule.
I was taken aback. I said, “Father, you promised us this interview wouldn’t air until after the Festival. That’s why we agreed to do it.”
Rosica got silent. He said something condescending and hung up the phone.
I guess we were foolish to trust someone, just because he wore a Roman collar.
Rosica did want to politicize the film, in a way we’d warned him would sink it. And he was willing to lie in order to do that. His motives? I won’t speculate on those."
Just one more example of the character of this deceitful man. A man who put my wife and I under great distress. A man who on no less than two occasions tried to undermine my employment.
A most repugnant man.