Terra X - Die Päpste

Terra X - Die Päpste

Feature films & TV 2007

Synopsis

Three-part Terra X series chronicling roughly 2,000 years of papal history — the rise and fall of the papacy from its greatest worldly power to the threat of its undoing. The arc runs from the apostle Peter, through the medieval clash of pope and emperor (the Gang nach Canossa), to the sack of Rome and the Reformation. Famous popes who shaped the fate of Europe are profiled, with documentary sequences shot at the major sites of papal history — Rome, Florence and Avignon — and a special permission to film in the underground necropolis beneath St. Peter's Basilica during the archaeological search for the apostle's tomb. Animations reconstruct how the old St. Peter's, the mausoleum of the "poor fisherman from the Sea of Galilee", was transformed into the great basilica that became Europe's largest construction site of its time. The series also explains key papal symbols and rituals — the conclave, the tiara, the Fisherman's Ring — and presents the only surviving love letter written by a pope.

Pixable Role

VFX vendor · Service

Scope of Work

CGI map animation · set extension (Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Rome with 250 digital workers) · 3D modeling (church, set, props) · texturing · animation (workers, props, sets) · VFX (smoke, snow, color correction) · rendering · compositing

Production Partners

LE VISION; ZDF; co-produced with ARTE

Client

ZDF / LE Vision

Director

Jens-Peter Behrend

Key Crew

Casting: Cornelia Mareth, Maria Rölcke. Co-production: Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF) and ARTE.

Cast

Maximilian Schell — host / on-screen narrator who guides viewers through the series. Gert Heidenreich — voice-over narrator. Featured expert: Prof. Volker Reinhardt (renowned historian and Vatican specialist).

Distribution

ZDF (Terra X / ZDF Expedition strand); ARTE; later reruns under "Mythen der Geschichte"

Themes

papacy · Catholic Church · power struggle between pope and emperor · Reformation · Renaissance Rome · sack of Rome · Vatican history · papal symbols and ritual

Production Notes

The series airs across multiple Terra X umbrella titles including the original "Imperium der Päpste" run, the "Imperium" subseries and later rebroadcasts under "Mythen der Geschichte" — content is identical.

External References