Kiefer Sutherland and Al Pacino Face Off in 'Father Joe,' Luc Besson's Crime-Thriller Priest Saga Unveiled at Venice
Kiefer Sutherland plays a priest who turns his church into a fortress and wages war on the Mafia. Al Pacino is the crime boss on the other side of that fight. The film is Father Joe, written and produced by Luc Besson, and it just screened at the 2026 Venice Film Festival on 10 September at 17:00 in the Venice Open — Out of Competition section, per the festival's official programme (La Biennale di Venezia).
Deadline published its review on 6 September (Deadline), crediting Barthélémy Grossmann as director and Besson as screenwriter. EuropaCorp's own 2025/2026 half-year results report, dated 10 December 2025, confirms the same division of labour: Besson wrote the script, Grossmann directed (EuropaCorp). Grossmann signed with Artist International Group for representation in July 2026 (Deadline).
The story is set in 1990s Little Italy, Manhattan. Sutherland's Father Joe — a man of faith haunted by a personal loss he refuses to discuss — converts his church into a stronghold, his crypt into an arsenal, and his Sunday mass into a mandatory ritual for the city's most dangerous criminals. He is backed by a clandestine brotherhood of young clerics. Pacino plays Giu, the crime boss; Michael Rispoli plays Lino, a veteran gangster. Ever Anderson, known to audiences from Black Widow and Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, plays Felicity, a 16-year-old caught in the middle. The Venice festival listing also credits Francesco Gheghi, Maurizio Lombardi, Georgi Filipov, Emeric Deligans, Clément Maurin, and Nathalie Tissier in supporting roles (La Biennale di Venezia). The runtime is 106 minutes.
EuropaCorp launched filming in October 2025, per the company's half-year report. Additional casting — Fred Melamed and Chris Tardio alongside Rispoli — was announced in November 2025 (Deadline). The Venice festival classifies the production as French (France).
The festival's Out of Competition slots are reserved for films the selectors want to spotlight outside the main competition — high-profile genre work, star vehicles, and films that bring marquee names to the Lido. Father Joe, with Sutherland and Pacino headlining a Besson-scripted crime thriller, fits that mould.
No theatrical release date has been announced. EuropaCorp is listed as the production company on its official site (EuropaCorp), and the project was first unveiled to buyers at the AFM — the American Film Market, where sales agents pitch upcoming titles to international distributors — in November 2025 (Deadline).
What makes this stand out is the creative chain: Besson, whose EuropaCorp has produced everything from Léon to Lucy, handing the camera to Grossmann — a film-maker building his feature résumé — while writing and producing himself. Sutherland, still best known to many as Jack Bauer on 24, playing a man of the cloth who answers violence with violence. And Pacino, back in gangster territory he has made his own since The Godfather and Scarface. The festival circuit will do what it does: start the conversation. Where the film goes from here is a distribution decision still to be made.
