Natascha Kampusch ordeal to be made into film

In the last few days it has been announced that the horrifying ordeal of Natascha Kampusch, an Austrian woman who was held captive in a cellar for eight years, is to be made into a feature film. This case is not to be confused with the Jozef Fritzl crimes that were also reported around a similar time.

The working title of the film is '3096' which is the number of days she was imprisoned for within the cellar. The screenplay is being written by Bernd Eichinger who is no stranger to writing claustrophobic films after being the man behind Downfall which followed the final days of Hitler in his bunker in Berlin. He met with Natascha on numerous occasions before he died in January 2011. The aim of the studio is to re-create the 2m x 3m cell to make it look exactly the same as the real one and to attempt to stay close to the real facts which includes dealing with the sexual abuse that she suffered during her imprisonment.

Natascha Kampusch will be played by Amelia Pidgeon as a teenager and then by Antonia Campbell-Hughes as an adult whilst Danish actor Thule Lindhart will play the role of Prikopil who abducted Kampusch. There is no doubt that this will be a difficult film to watch due to the subject matter which will have to be carefully dealt with and will be made all the more horrifying by knowing that the events have really happened. I'm still not convinced that showing what happened to Natascha Kampusch on the big screen is a good idea, the information is out there to be read through various books and news outlets. What is to be gained by making the film?