Directed by Ugo Falena and Mario Corsi, with a screenplay by the latter, Brother Sun is a 1918 Italian silent film that recounts the life of Saint Francis of Assisi.
Divided into four episodes – The Encounter with the Leper, In the Footsteps of the Poor Man of Assisi, Time, and The Stigmata – the film portrays the deep intertwining of the lives of Francis and Clare of Assisi. Clare rejects the advances of wealthy suitors to devote herself entirely to the Lord, while Francis, the son of a merchant, abandons a worldly life of pleasures to embrace an ascetic path in service of God, leading both toward sainthood.
The film was restored in 1998 by the Fondazione Cineteca Italiana.