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Cinema: Italy, film on newborns who vanished in former Yugo

"Stitches" from May 13. Director, 500 families lost their kids

05 May, 15:41
(ANSA) - TRIESTE, 05 MAG - The story of the newborn babies who disappeared in unclear circumstances from Yugoslavian hospitals, particularly in Serbia, during the seventies, eighties, and nineties, arrives on the screens of Italian cinemas. The film 'Stitches - A private bond', by director Miroslav Terzic, written by Elma Tataragic, tells this story and will be screened in cinemas from 13 May 2021 thanks to Trent Film, in association with Infilmica.

The film premiered in the Panorama section of the 69th Berlinale, where it won the Europa Cinemas Label. The screenplay was inspired by a Belgrade seamstress who had searched for her son for almost twenty years. The baby was declared dead immediately after birth in a city hospital. A few days after the birth, the hospital informed her of the premature death of the newborn, but without showing her the child's body and never indicating the place of burial. A story that several other families lived, and these parents still today believe that their children did not die after birth but were victims of illegal trafficking. The case of missing babies has been a topic of discussion in Serbia for years and has also been in the spotlight at the Council of Europe.

"I became a father for the first time in 2001. In the same year, I got to know the story of the kidnapping of babies in hospitals," said director Miroslav Terzić. "The story of their sales; the false death certificates; the lies to the mothers; the ruined families. I started digging, examining archives, and looking for witnesses who had the strength to tell me something.

The local authorities never solved the cases. Most of them occurred in the late 1980s, and the early 1990s, on the eve of the war, which tore apart Yugoslavia. More than 500 families are still striving to find their children," said Terzic. (ANSA).

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