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Real-life ordeal in Laos to be dramatised

Kay Danes’ account of the ordeal that she and her husband experienced in Laos after being wrongly accused of stealing millions of dollars’ worth of cash and gems from a mining company will be adapted into a feature film.

Robert Lewis Galinsky and actors-turned-neophyte producers Mirko and Amanda Grillini have bought the screen rights to Danes’ life story.

Galinsky is writing the screenplay and will serve as executive producer. The Grillinis will produce together with a seasoned producer who is yet to be hired. The Grillinis brought the project to Galinsky.

In 2000 Kerry and Kay Danes were arrested and accused of stealing gems and cash from a gem mining company in the Laos capital of Vientiane, where they were employed by a security company.

They were detained for 10 months, enduring brutal interrogations, mock executions, torture and the forced separation from their three small children.

In 2001 they were fined and sentenced to seven years in jail. After widespread media reporting of their plight and intense diplomatic efforts by John Howard’s Australian Government, the couple was released.

Kay Danes wrote an account of that period in her 2002 book Standing Ground. She is now a human rights campaigner.

Galinsky says the narrative will start in the mid-1990s, exploring the case of Max Green, a Melbourne tax lawyer who embezzled millions of dollars and laundered some of the money by buying gems. Green was murdered in Cambodia in 1998.

He tells IF the plan is to shoot the film in tropical Queensland, which will substitute for Laos. He hasn’t drawn up a wish-list of directors yet but thinks the project will be suited to a top-ranked action director.
 

  1. i am still in doubt that their ordeal is the true story, so far what ican recall kay Dann is at that time he opened his office right in front of my office, he came to see me and try to sell his security equipment to us,i honestly believe that the news that appeared on ausie tv is untrue, and the true is they have taken the gems, and also the cash, and try to smuggle is through the checkpoint that is the true

  2. Boony, I hope you will go see the movie when it’s out and judge for yourself how clearly everything is treated and the events on both sides of the story revealed so that the truth is out there for everyone to see and know all the events that will be unveiled in this amazing drama.

  3. Boony,

    Firstly, Kay Danes is spelt as such and I am a woman and not a man lol. And the Securior office was directly across from the Public Bank Berhard and the Department of Immigration AND we never sold Security Equipment. We only provided a static guarding service. Seems you might have a few of your facts wrong but that’s okay, I suspect you have your reasons for posting as you do.

    Kob jai lie lie deur. Sok dee deur! 🙂

  4. Please be advised that New Holland publishers own the copyright to the Danes story. The article is incorrect. No one has bought the screen rights to Danes’ life story nor is there any agreement to adapt the Danes story to film.

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