At MIA 2023, the creative team behind Italian outfit B&B Film (made up of Raffaele Brunetti, Vania Del Borgo and Giuseppe Bentivegna) are pitching their new non-fiction project, titled Achille Lauro – The Terror Cruise. The docuseries explores “one of the most tragic operations of international terrorism,” through “the direct testimonies of the protagonists who lived through the hours of the 1985 Achille Lauro hijacking, and the subsequent Sigonella diplomatic crisis.”
The project promises to “tell the geopolitical shifts that prepared the ground to the tragic October 1985 events,” which are still at the core of current political debate. These span “the delicate balance of power in the Middle East in relation to the Palestinian issue,” “the diplomatic relations between USA and Europe” and “the fight against terror.”
The docuseries kicks off with the events that unfolded on 7 October 1985. On that day, the Achille Lauro cruise ship was moored off the Egyptian coast. A number of passengers had left it to take a guided tour around the Pyramids, planning to be back on board the same evening. Then a voice rang out. “Attention, this is the captain speaking. The ship has been hijacked. Do exactly as I say,” says the Captain Gerardo De Rosa. The announcement is set to change the destiny of all the men and women who remained on board.
Four men belonging to the Palestinian Liberation Front had taken control of the ship. They boarded it by showing fake passports and are now threatening the lives of 244 passengers and 344 crew members. Right after, the Italian governments pressures Yasser Arafat into negotiating with the terrorists.
Arafat sends AbuʿAbbās, the head of the Palestinian Liberation Front, to act as an intermediary. Abbās, however, is the real mastermind behind the attack, and the hijackers speak to him as if he is their commander. Negotiations are anyway successful and the four Palestinians agree to free the passengers, asking for safe passage to Tunis, the city which hosts the Liberation Front headquarters.
But then, news about a murder onboard starts to spread. Leon Klinghoffer, an elderly US-citizen of Jewish descent and bound to a wheelchair, is the victim. Nobody eye-witnessed the crime. However, it was kept secret by De Rosa, who feared it may prompt a massacre.
On the evening of 10 October, the US Delta Force fighters from Saratoga force the EgyptAir aircraft carrying the hijackers to land on the Sicilian military base of Sigonella. Ronald Reagan, the then US president, rings Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi and demands that the hijackers are handed over to US authorities.
That night, the worst possible diplomatic crisis between two NATO countries unfolds before the crisis is brought to a close with the arrest of the four terrorists by the Italian army, and Abbās’ escape to Yugoslavia, aided by the Italian intelligence agency.
Speaking of his research work and director’s vision, director-producer Raffaele Brunetti tells Business Doc Europe: “For the first time, a documentary series manages to reunite the protagonists of such an event including the hijackers, the widow of their commander, the daughters of the victim [US citizen Leon Klinghoffer], the crew members as well as military and diplomatic personnel from all the parties at stake.”
“Archive footage will be a key component of our series. We’ll try to evoke the light-hearted atmosphere of 1980s Italian cruises starting from the amateur films shot by passengers and staff and commercials, mixing them with the most dramatic, hard-hitting journalistic footage.”
According to Brunetti, Achille Lauro – The Terror Cruise is a series positioned “in a high-end range within the streaming platforms and broadcasters’ international market.”
“Our work carried out on recent productions and the first development phase compelled us in terms of the project’s consistency and feasibility,” he adds. “We got in touch with our contacts in Italy and internationally, mostly because the nature of this story goes well beyond our country’s borders as it delves into a theme that, sadly, is still very timely,” he adds.
Budgeted at €1,171,369, the project has received backing from Creative Europe MEDIA, Ark Media, WDR/ARTE and the tax credit of the Italian Ministry of Culture. Filming is set to commence next April, with delivery expected in December. At MIA, the team is looking for co-production partners.
