Les Soldats du pape - 500 Ans de la Garde suisse pontificale

The world-renowned Swiss Guard may be the smallest army in the world, but they have guarded the Pope’s every turn for the last 500 years. They swear on oath to protect the life of the Holy Father with their own, as indeed they did during an attempted assassination in 1981. Here, the director gets exclusive behind the scenes access to this select group and pieces together the mystery still surrounding the shocking murder of Swiss Guardsman Alois Estermann and of his wife Gladys in 1998. Interwoven with fascinating and hereto unseen archive footage, the film introduces recent new findings on the case. The perpetrator is meant to be another Swiss Guard, but doubts are cast on the Vatican’s official version. The film is a unique insight into the everyday activities of the Papal Soldiers who are anything but everyday.