Synopsis
Pope Joan (Die Päpstin, 2009) is a German historical epic you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Sönke Wortmann from Donna Woolfolk Cross's novel. The year is 814, the day Charlemagne dies. In the German city of Ingelheim, a girl named Joan is born into a world that has very specific ideas about what women are for.
Joan learns to read in secret, survives violence, disguises herself as a Benedictine monk, and makes her way to Rome. What she does there — rising through the ranks of the Church until she sits in the chair no woman was ever supposed to reach — is the legend that the Vatican still won't officially confirm. Johanna Wokalek plays Joan with a stubbornness that feels less heroic and more like necessity; David Wenham is the man she loves, Ian Glen the one who opposes her. The film runs close to two and a half hours, shot across Germany, Spain, and Morocco, in German, English, and Latin.
It doesn't rush, and it doesn't soften what the ninth century actually looked like for a woman with ambitions. Stream Pope Joan (2009) online on iFILM.
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