Monteverde also pointed out the fact that Cabrini was the first woman to lead a mission overseas, one in which no men were involved.
“So she found herself as an immigrant in a country that was completely controlled at that time by men,” he said. “So I knew that was going to be one of the biggest giants she was going to face. She was going to have to fight men as a woman, but not fight for herself.”
“That’s the beauty of the film. It was not a battle that she wanted to enrich herself. It was a battle to enrich others, but most importantly to enrich those [whom] I call the forgotten ones. And we have a lot of forgotten ones today,” Monteverde said.
The film’s release date happens to fall on International Women’s Day, March 8. The film was set to come out earlier, but the success of “Sound of Freedom” caused the release date of “Cabrini” to be pushed back.
“I do think there was divine orchestration,” Monteverde told CNA. “Albert Einstein, in one of his last quotes, said, ‘God hides in the coincidences.’ So, it was a great coincidence that we were able to jump on that boat.”
Another “big connection” to "Cabrini" for the filmmaker was the fact that he too came to the U.S. as an immigrant — from Mexico.
“I also came here with nothing. I didn’t speak English. I didn’t have any money. I started, the typical cliche, I started washing dishes because you don’t need to speak English to wash a dish,” he shared. “I went to school, I educated myself, and it was a journey.”
Monteverde emphasized that “this movie is not about immigration because that’s political; this movie is about caring for the immigrant. And that’s a big difference.”
The film has already been screened several times and Monteverde shared that audiences have left with a “desire to fight whatever fight that they are currently going through.”
“I have heard so many people that leave inspired to go back and face things that they could have already given up,” he added.
“Movies don’t change the world, [but] movies can transform. This is a transformative film in many ways. It transforms people and the people are the ones that change the world.”
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Francesca is the Social Media Manager for Catholic News Agency. She received her degree in Communications with an emphasis in Digital Media from the University of Colorado - Denver.