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FIDELIS
TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE
BOOK & FILM BY ROBERT ORLANDO
SCREENPLAY BY JASON PEARSON
ABOUT THE FILM
Fidelis is the untold story of Antonin Scalia — the son of Italian Catholic immigrants who rose from a Queens walk-up to become the most consequential Supreme Court Justice of the modern era. Structured as a classic drama and scored to the operas Scalia loved, the film follows a man whose deep Catholic faith shaped everything: his marriage of fifty-five years, his nine children, his fearless pro-life convictions, and his unwavering belief that words — in Scripture and in the Constitution alike — mean what they say.
Yet the beating heart of Fidelis is a friendship that stunned Washington: the decades-long bond between Scalia and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Catholic conservative and the Jewish progressive who disagreed on nearly everything and loved each other anyway — sharing opera boxes, New Year's Eve dinners, and an elephant ride in India. In an age of division, Scalia's life delivers a message audiences are starving for: a man can hold the strongest convictions in the room and still be a uniting presence in it. Faith, family, friendship, and fidelity to the law — culminating in a legacy, carried forward by the generation of judges he mentored, that is still reshaping American justice today.
Fidelis will be directed by Robert Orlando, the veteran filmmaker behind eight theatrical features, whose acclaimed work on faith, history, and ideas makes him the definitive choice for this story. The film will be produced by Kris Hull and Jason Pearson through Percolate Studios' just-released AI theatrical pipeline models — a breakthrough production system that cuts traditional feature budgets by 90% and compresses production from years to just five months, without sacrificing theatrical-quality craft. This combination — a proven director, a built-in faith and conservative audience that has repeatedly powered box-office surprises, and a production model that transforms the economics of independent film — positions Fidelis to deliver both cultural impact and exceptional returns. Investors aren't just backing a movie; they're backing the first wave of a new studio model, told through the life of a man who proved that fidelity — to God, to family, to the Constitution — never goes out of style.
A Director's Vision (Robert Orlando)
Fidelis is not a political film — it is a film about fidelity. Antonin Scalia compels us not because he wins every argument, but because he refuses to betray the principles that define him. The story asks one timeless question: what happens when a person chooses faithfulness over popularity?
As an Italian-American filmmaker, I know Scalia's world from the inside — the family, the faith, the humor, the arguments around the dinner table. These rhythms are not decorative details; they are the emotional architecture of the story. This film deserves a director who has lived that culture, not merely researched it.
Visually, I see the elegance of classic European cinema: natural light, Caravaggio-inspired compositions, and long takes that let performances breathe. Opera — Scalia's great passion — becomes the film's emotional grammar, with arguments as arias and dissent as performance. His friendship with Ruth Bader Ginsburg provides the counterpoint: two voices in harmony despite ideological distance, revealing his humanity as no courtroom scene could.
Although I've always considered myself a dramatic filmmaker first, my years directing documentaries, collaborating with Percolate, and experimenting with AI filmmaking became an unexpected apprenticeship for this moment. Rather than diverting me from narrative cinema, they refined my ability to tell larger stories with greater economy, invention, and visual precision.
This project unites everything that has shaped my career: European cinema, opera, Italian family life, and the moral complexity of history. It is a deeply human drama that leaves audiences reflecting not on politics, but on the beauty, cost, and freedom of fidelity.
