Directors Statement:
All the “recollections” in the screenplay are my per-
sonal recollections. It all “happened” to me, as well
as to the people around me: mother, father, grandfa-
ther, grandmother, friends and enemies, the German
officer in our house – the entire war.
Those “recollections” might have been hemmed or
frilled to a certain extent, with lace or a decorative
button added here and there - not to embellish or
falsify them or to make them more authentic but
rather to make them more cinematic, because film is
larger than life.
The recollections of that 1939-45 world are very well
defined in my conscious mind. I lived and grew up
in hell, but for me it was heaven – I did not know it
was war, I thought it was just my life, and my life was
exciting, dangerous and amorous.
I was living in a double ring of fire, surrounded by
my family’s indifference and self-centeredness but
protected by the love and attention of a stranger
– a German officer. In the visual sense, that bygone
world and those recollections were unalterable: it
was a wide-frame world – with a fixed focus, and
with extreme high and low angles since I had spent
most of my time under the table, among the legs of
grownups or high up on a tree, alone and free.
In a photographic sense, it was a black and white
world. The power would frequently go off, every-
thing was darkened during the war, and we would
hide in basements from German, American, English
and Russian planes.
During war, nights are long.
During war, there is no sun or dreams of sun. Colors
are also part of my recollections: black – swastikas,
white – victory and red – the five pointed star. The
color red is dominant, because red is the color of
blood which flowed in the streams of my childhood.
There was a lot of green: green is the fruit of my child-
hood, because all the fruit in nature was picked and
eaten while still green. Green apples, pears, apricots,
green strawberries. Our hunger had no patience,
and only after the war was over did I realize that fruit
does ripen.
I would be very happy to film my true story about
an untrue life. I think that the film How I was Stolen
by the Germans would shed light on a fantastic but
forgotten setting of our past, and the image of that
forgotten setting might enhance the future of many
unhappy children. It might also inflict a bitter blow
on our selfish old-age and cause it
Milos Radivojevic
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