Explanation of Stockholm Syndrome (and our reasons for making a film about it)

o Stockholm Syndrome is a condition in which a hostage or victim falls in love with their captor, either due to physiological dependence or from lack of abuse/kindness. Named after a bank robbery in the eponymous city, psychiatrist Frank Ochberg defined it as "a primitive gratitude for the gift of life, not unlike that felt by an infant"

Contextually, SS being represented in contemporary media has been overshadowed by the threat of terrorism. Although SS has been attributed to paedophilic 'grooming' techniques, it appears film studios are more concerned with post-9/11 cinema, with films like 'Vantage Point' and 'Hurt Locker'.


o I think that overall, 'Psychological Drama' is a genre often ignored by filmmakers. Those in smaller independant studios focus more on creating gritty realism (like 'Fish Tank'), whereas larger big-budget studios tend to dismiss any sort of complex film, and prefer to make Thrillers with a psychological "backbone", as it were, to make the film unique and interesting, such as 'Fight Club', 'Sixth Sense' or 'Memento'. These films also tend to have unjustifiably high budgets, with 'The Number 23' costing $30million to make.

That said, SS is not a completely new concept to cinema. Even the Die Hard and James Bond franchises have made references to it, if only for a plot twist. However, 'The Collector' (1965) and 'Dog Day Afternoon' (1975) both deal with it directly, and there are a handful more (although very few are commercially successful).


o To us, the important distinguisher in our sequence is that there is no implication of a sexual relationship between the two (choosing a boy rather than a female child actor for this reason). We also avoided the 21st Century cliche of doing a film involving the internet/mobile phones. However, to play on society's fear of child-abduction (especially as us and our peers are 16-17), we left the kidnapper's motive ambiguous, contrasting his sinister malevolence in the forest with the hand holding at Waterloo, and his rough treatment contrasted with getting him a drink. We also decided to have no Father for Julek, to bring in ideas of dependence and parent/pseudo-parent relationships.