In the reign of emperor Tiberius, Gallilean prophet John the Baptist preaches against King Herod and Queen Herodias. The latter wants John dead, but Herod fears to harm him due to a prophecy. Enter beautiful Princess Salome, Herod’s long-absent stepdaughter. Herodias sees the king’s dawning lust for Salome as her means of bending the king to her will. But Salome and her lover Claudius are (contrary to Scripture) nearing conversion to the new religion. And the famous climactic dance turns out to have unexpected implications…

Pacino takes us on a journey as he unravels and re-interprets Oscar Wilde’s once banned and most controversial work SALOME, a scintillating tale of lust, greed and one woman’s scorn.

One of Al Pacino’s directory experiments, Salomé was filmed over 5 days in 2011, but has yet to be widely released. It is a part of a double feature on the Oscar Wilde short play “Salomé”, together with the Venice-shown documentary “Wilde Salomé”, that shows the making of this film. The synops shown on IMDb for the 1923 take on the play goes as following: “Salome, the daughter of Herodias, seduces her step-father/uncle Herod, governor of Judea, with a salacious dance. In return, he promises her the head of the prophet John the Baptist.”