A Nun And An Officer

The Screenplay Adaptation

How the book became a movie script
by Jim Stablein

It was sheer persistence. Radmila had envisioned her book as a movie since before it was even published. She knew in her heart that her story was epic, passionate and cinematic. And now that vision is becoming reality.

Many readers had been so enthralled with the book that they wrote Radmila to tell her how they thought it would make a great movie. The comparison was most often with Doctor Zhivago. The Charlotte Observer's movie critic agreed, "a movie it could be."

Several Yugoslavian filmmakers expressed interest in making an independent feature. Vesna Ljubic, an acclaimed and award-winning documentary and feature film writer/director and a former assistant of Federico Fellini, left an open invitation to Radmila to make the movie in her native Serbo-Croatian language. But in Radmila's heart, she had always envisioned an English language feature film that would be distributed globally.

Had she passed up an opportunity to make a foreign language Oscar-winning film?

The first step towards her goal was to find a qualified screenwriter. Rather than sell the story to a Hollywood studio for an adaptation in which she would have no input, Radmila chose to find the best local screenwriter with whom she could work. She attended Charlotte Screenwriters group meetings and selected a writer using her instinct, intuition, and common sense. The next step would be up to the writer.

Having collaborated on two previous screenplays, one of which won a Silver Award at Worldfest Charleston, I wasn't inclined to embark on another collaboration. It's difficult. Egos and passions flare up. There are meetings, and meetings, and meetings. Talk, talk, talk. But in the end, the screenplay comes out stronger.

After reading the book, I was convinced that this was the best dramatic story I'd ever have the opportunity to tell. The cinematic potential was incredible.

Set amongst the breathtaking landscapes and historic cities of Serbia and Bosnia, the story affords an opportunity for a modern exploration of the starkness of postwar Italian Neorealism combined with the grandness of a David Lean epic.

The story is real. The screenplay is complete. The motion picture is going to be... great.