Film Professor Revisits 1981 Kidnapping Of U.S. General

Max Leonida, a film professor at William Penn University in Iowa, is thoroughly familiar with the case of General James Lee Dozier.

On December 7th, 1981 in Verona, Italy, a pair of Red Brigades terrorists posing as plumbers kidnapped the then-chief of staff of NATO's southern European land forces. Dozier was held for 42 days before being freed in a daring raid in Padua by Italian special police forces.

Leonida, originally from Milan, was an 11-year-old child when the Dozier kidnapping occurred and all these years later, he has made Dozier, a feature-length drama about the case with the help of William Penn students. At the recent Julien Dubuque International Film Festival, the film won the prize for Best Feature.

Leonida, who runs his production company Astarox Productions with his wife Paola, first lived in Los Angeles for 10 years after moving to the U.S., before relocating to the Midwest and Oskaloosa. General Dozier, meanwhile, is still alive, retired in Florida at age 95.

"General Dozier has been asked for the rights to his story by a lot of people," Leonida explained in an interview with the Oskaloosa News. "He never gave the rights to anybody, but he gave the rights to me after we became friends."

"The most beautiful thing has been when we presented the film in Dubuque, Dozier's daughter Cheryl was in the audience for the premiere and she said, 'This movie is one of the most beautiful tributes,' and everybody cried," he added. "To know that you've done something that has been so faithful, so right, so compelling that the Dozier family appreciated it, for me, that is enough."

Distribution plans are still being firmed up for Dozier, but Leonida is convinced it is in his home country of Italy that the movie will have its biggest impact. "We were looking for a project that could basically bring together our Italian background and connections, our American experience, our knowledge, our skills and of course the help of the entire community of Oskaloosa."

[Max Leonida website]