The Controversy of Valladolid
THE STORY: Imagine a time when the Catholic Church had the right to determine whether or not you were human. In a sixteenth-century Spanish monastery, the fate of millions of American natives from an ocean away hangs precariously in the balance. THE CONTROVERSY OF VALLADOLID, an exciting new masterwork by French playwright and screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière, brings to light the shocking real-life debates whose outcomes are still felt today.
“Jean-Claude Carrière’s fierce attack on [the Catholic Church] for its policies on human slavery makes for a refreshing change. Although based on a Spanish papal tribunal of 1550, Carrière’s stern historical drama hits a resounding contempo note with its revelations of how the church agonized over its ultimate conclusion that indigenous American natives were children of God after all—after invading their land, destroying their culture, plundering their natural resources and subjecting thousands of people to servitude, torture and death.” —Variety.
