Programme
Index Screening schedule

Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God

Alex Gibney, USA 2012, 106’

Mea Maxima Culpa is an HBO documentary that exposes the dark secrets of the Catholic clergy through interviews with adults who, as children, were sexually abused by priests. The starting point for director Alex Gibney are four hearing-impaired men who were the first in America to break the conspiracy of silence and publicly  reveal the name of the  priest who had molested them. The film crew  makes its way through Wisconsin, visits Ireland’s monasteries, and interviews the highest Vatican authorities, to conduct its own investigation  into the molestation, by priests, of over 200 hearing-impaired children who had been under the guardianship of the Catholic Church.

Alex Gibney

Alex Gibney is an American documentary filmmaker and producer born in New York in 1953. He went to Yale University, as well as UCLA, which is where he studied film. He worked in television for a time as a screenwriter and executive producer. While he was nominated for an Oscar in 2006, it was two years later that he actually won the award, for his documentary Taxi to the Dark Side. His films, which have been screened at the biggest festivals in the world, do not shy away from the controversial subjects of the day. Esquire magazine has called him one of the most important contemporary documentary filmmakers. 

Selected filmography

2005 Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (dok. / doc.)

2007 Taxi to the Dark Side (dok. / doc.)

2010 Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer (dok. / doc.)

2012 Mea maxima culpa: Milczenie Kościoła / Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God (dok. / doc.)

2013 Kłamstwa Armstronga / The Armstrong Lie (dok. / doc.)

Cast & Crew

director Alex Gibney
cinematography Lisa Rinzler
editing Sloane Klevin
music Ivor Guest, Robert Logan
cast Alex Gibney, Terry Kohut, Gary Smith
producer Sara Bernstein, Nicoletta Billi, Trevor Birney, Alex Gibney
production Jigsaw Productions, Wider Film Projects, Below The Radar Entertainment, HBO Documentary Films
sales HBO Europe
language English
coloration colour
stay in touch
festival partners