‘The Exorcist’ Director William Friedkin Making Exorcism Documentary

Wiliam Friedkin is getting back into the exorcism game.

The Oscar-winning director is partnering with LD Entertainment on feature-length documentary The Devil and Father Amorth, which will explore how the moments in Friedkin’s classic The Exorcist compares to actual exorcisms. 

More than four decades after the release of the director’s 1973 horror movie, Friedkin received permission to attend an exorcism performed by Father Gabriele Amorth, who is known as the “Dean of Exorcists,” having performed thousands of exorcisms. Friedkin witnessed the ninth exorcism on an Italian woman who had been experiencing troubling fits and behavioral changes that psychiatry apparently could not fix. The filmmaker previously documented the experience in a piece he wrote for Vanity Fair. 

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“I’ve never stopped being fascinated by the nature of good and evil, and the possibility of demonic possession,” said the director. “The opportunity for me to witness and film an actual exorcism came about, more than four decades after I made The Exorcist, completely by accident.”  

Friedkin previously worked with LD Entertainment’s Mickey Liddell and Pete Shilaimon on the adaption of Tracy Letts‘ play Killer Joe, which starred Matthew McConaughey.

Said Liddell: “I am thrilled to be working again with Billy Friedkin, who is one of the greatest and most prolific filmmakers of our time. This documentary shook me to my core and made me wonder  – could demonic possession really exist?”

LD Entertainment recently released The Zookeeper’s Wife and is finishing production on David Rosenthal’s Jacob’s Ladder.

Friedkin’s other credits include best picture winner The French Connection, which won him the Academy Award for best director, and the star-studded revenge film To Live and Die in L.A.  He is repped by ICM and Lavely & Singer.