Online Confessional

A devout priest creates an online confessional to extend the scope of his forgiveness, but receives bizarre believers who put his faith in check.

P.S.: the English subtitles are on the "CC" button.

  • Tomas Fleck
    Director
    Necropolis, Deer Alice, Game Crashers
  • Tomas Fleck
    Writer
    Necropolis, Deer Alice, Game Crashers
  • Tomas Fleck
    Producer
    Necropolis, Deer Alice, Game Crashers
  • Rafael Pimenta
    Key Cast
    "Steve"
    Backdoor, Necropolis
  • Project Title (Original Language):
    Confessionário Online
  • Project Type:
    Television
  • Genres:
    Comedy
  • Runtime:
    21 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    October 31, 2021
  • Production Budget:
    500 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Brazil
  • Country of Filming:
    Brazil
  • Language:
    Portuguese
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Catalyst Stories
    Duluth
    United States
    September 27, 2022
    North America Premiere
    Official Selection
  • Series Festival
    Porto Alegre
    Brazil
    November 24, 2022
    Premiere Brazil
    Winner - Best Pilot
Director Biography - Tomas Fleck

Hello! My name is Tomás Fleck and I’m a Brazilian showrunner, screenwriter and director based in Sao Paulo. My focus is in narrative series that mixes genres and, in 2022, I worked as a writer/creator in two TV shows for Anonymous Content Brazil based on American videogames. In 2021 I wrote a Globoplay Original half-hour comedy/drama tv show about an e-sports team - under the supervision of International Emmy Winner Jorge Furtado. And I also wrote The Masked Singer Brazil, most commented show on TV in 2021.

My main works in series are: creator, screenwriter and director of workplace comedy in a morgue called Necropolis (Netflix Brazil), whose original music was nominated for the Jerry Goldsmith Awards in the Best Original Music (TV Series) category alongside series such as The Umbrella Academy, La Casa de Papel and The Boys; writer/producer/co-director of the comedy/thriller Deer Alice (Netflix Brazil) and drama/fantasy Werner and the Dead (Amazon Prime - Brazil), and seasons 5 and 6 of the popular children's sitcom Game Crashers (Gloob and Globoplay); creator, director and writer of Online Confessional, selected for CatalystStories 2021 (Emmy and HBO sponsored festival) and winner of best pilot in Series Festival Brazil; creator and screenwriter of the drama/sci-fi/tween B Horizon (Amazon Prime - Brazil), the crime/law/cop thriller The Complex (CineBrasilTv), also selected for CatalystStories 2021, the comedy/sport Bocheiros (Prime Box Brazil Channel); and the comedy Family Hell (Theater series for Cacilda Becker's Theater in Sao Paulo). In Cinema, I was the writer/producer of comedy/drama A Gritty Story (Brasilia Film Festival, 2019); the comedy shorts PIGEONS! (Anima Mundi, 2014), More Suicidal, Less Suicidal (Gramado Film Festival, 2015) and writer/diretor of the drama/thriller/fantasy "Glass Wall" (International Izmir Short Film Festival 2018).

I graduated in Social Communication and did my final work in character development for the series Mad Men. I also studied screenwriting with Willian Rabkin (Writing the Pilot) and was mentored by Steve Basilone (Community, The Goldbergs) through Catalyst. I was selected to study theater dramaturgy at the Dramaturgy Center of SESI in Sao Paulo, where I wrote the play "A Dog Tragedy, for humans"; I was selected for the literary writing laboratory - CLIPE - at Roses House, one of the largest literary museums in Latin America, with my first novel: "Second Family"; I also was a finalist in the pilot contest at FRAPA, the largest script festival in Latin America, with the sitcom "The Hospital Heroe$" and a finalist at Series Festival Brazil with Game Of Life pilot script. In 2019 and 2020, I studied improvisation at Comedy Space to improve my writing, directing actors and creative dynamics for the writer's room. I teach writing at the Showrunner course at International Cinema Academy. I worked as a writer, creator, director, executive producer and post-production coordinator in several projects at my company, Verte Filmes.

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Director Statement

Who has never had a dilemma, such as: having the dream job or a big family? Live an adventure or stay in the safe place? Or… even worse: be a good priest or betray religion and fall in love?

OK. This last one may not be your dilemma, but it is Father Steve's dilemma.

The show starts when he decides to create a new way of forgiving the devotees: online. But no one from his church likes that because it’s too bold for them. So, Steve goes against everything and everyone to increase the reach of forgiveness on the WEB, but ends up falling in love with the woman who makes his website. Now he's on a crisis of faith and wonders if he should continue to pursue his beloved profession and fight his feelings or love someone and betray everything his religion preaches.

Every devotee he helps at Confessional Online teaches him something about love, friendship, life, and puts him further or closer to his dramatic question: “what should I do?”. He only knows what other people should do and how to rid them of their guilt, but he never thinks much about himself and the fact that he also feels guilty.

Thus, the series discusses, in a fun way, the changes that the Catholic Church has had after Pope Francis - from the point of view of Father Steve, who works in a small church and wants to change the system so much that he ends up changing himself.

In recent years, we've seen some feature films and TV series that have dealt with similar themes, such as Two Popes (Netflix); The Young Pope (HBO); and Fleabag (Amazon), which shows the journey of a character who falls in love with a priest and vice-versa.

Online Confessional brings this religious universe to the genre of workplace comedies – which also intends to shed light on the daily life of such an ancient and little-known profession: the priest one. The importance of telling this story is to discuss religion in a non-critical way, but in a very human and mundane way that somehow affects all of us around the planet.