The protagonist at the centre of Malta’s most high-profile child abduction, the Croatian Anika De Vilera, had her story of fraud and intrigue featured in a documentary on Al Jazeera last week.

The story in the Croatia’s Nedjeljni Jutarnji.

Clips of the article about the abduction published in The Sunday Times of Malta on March 18 are shown on screen, and Malta features repeatedly in the documentary.

The award-winning producer of the documentary, Robert Tomic Zuber, first came across Ms De Vilera in 2013 during the launch of a fundraising campaign for a toddler whose parents sought funds for expensive leukemia treatment in the US.

Ms De Vilera, Mr Tomic Zuber said, appeared at the event posing as a German surgeon (she even apologised for not speaking Croatian) who could handle the PR aspect of their fundraising campaign.

“I intuitively started filming her at the time,” Mr Tomic Zuber told The Sunday Times of Malta. “I felt that something was not right, and then I saw the contract she offered the parents and I personally intervened to get her off the case.” 

Five years later he spoke to Andreas Gerdes, father of the abducted child, and dug out the archive footage. More research followed: he spoke to Gustavo Vilera, the Venezuelan ex-husband of Ms De Vilera, who told him that she had posed as a medic in Germany and Croatia.

Then he dug up a shocking revelation: a forged birth certificate in which Ms De Vilera had taken on the alias of Dr Anika Mesic, daughter of ex-Croatian president Stjepan Mesic. There were other aliases she adopted over the years, including being the daughter of a Balkan business magnate. Several unconnected sources at the Sisters of Charity Hospital in Zagreb also told Mr Tomic Zuber of Ms De Vilera impersonating a plastic surgeon.

“This story is everything that a screenwriter would want,” Mr Tomic Zuber said. “It’s a thriller, with human deviousness, frailty, criminality, intrigue, emotions, love, and fathers in David’s position against a mother in Goliath’s position.”

It’s also a story of families torn apart, of children damaged by a mother. Mr Gerdes has not seen his 33-month-old daughter for a year and a half now, and Mr Vilera lives in fear of his son being abducted.

The title of the documentary, 150 forbidden meter, refers to the restraining order imposed on Mr Gerdes and Silvana Mrsic Tramosljanin, mother of Ms De Vilera. The order was imposed after Mrs Mrsic Tramosljanin, who disapproves of her daughter’s actions, took Mr Gerdes to the place where her daughter lived.

The story is a thriller, with human deviousness, frailty, criminality, intrigue, emotions and love

Coincidentally, as they approached the building, Ms De Vilera stepped out and later reported them to the police for intended or attempted assault. They were slapped with a ‘temporary’ restraining order forbidding them from venturing anywhere within 150 metres of Ms De Vilera’s place of abode – the ‘temporary’ order has dragged on as Ms De Vilera allegedly fails to attend the court hearings. 

Another heart-rending moment is the visit to Ms De Vilera’s grandmother, who expresses two fears: that she will not be able to see her grandchild again before her death, and that she will not be able to see her great-granddaughter when Mr Gerdes wins custody. 

The palpable raw emotions in these moments are testimony to Mr Tomic Zuber’s brilliance. The choice of locations and cast, the low light and sound track (which add mood of suspense and forbiddingness), and the progression of scenes all speak of excellent cinematography.

Documentary producer Robert Tomic Zuber.

Mr Tomic Zuber’s documentaries have been widely shown in film festivals in north and east Europe. He used to work for the BBC World Service and Croatian TV before setting up his own production company, TOROlab, which produced the 28-minute documentary for Revizija, a monthly 50-minute programme on Al Jazeera Balkans channel that has the format of documentary followed by studio discussion. In this case the studio discussion featured an incisive interview with the director of Social Services in Zagreb.

“I had to control my emotions throughout,” Mr Tomic Zuber admitted, “to finish the story as objectively as I could. I tried to get Ms De Vilera to participate in the documentary but she reported me to the police for harassment. The police summoned me prior to airing the film, it was the first time something like that happened to me. That gave me another perspective of the fathers, of being falsely accused.

“So you are faced with a false accusation, you cannot do anything, the system doesn’t do anything, not even checking if her accusation is false. The day after we aired the film, the police also called in Gustavo and his girlfriend after Ms De Vilera reported them for ‘misusing’ the child in the documentary or something like that.” 

The abduction case remains caught up in court battles in Valletta and Zagreb: the court in Zagreb has ruled that the child has to be repatriated to Malta, her ‘habitual residence’, but Ms De Vilera has filed an appeal which has to be decided within six weeks. In Malta meanwhile the two cases filed by the father are caught up in legal technicalities.

“Ms De Vilera’s story shows the incapacity of systems in the EU, from Germany to Malta to Croatia, to deal with this kind of person,” said Mr Tomic Zuber. “It’s an example of how, even though we are in the same Union, information from these systems is not shared, and that facilitates those who want to bypass systems all around EU, in any variation. So this is not only a story of two fathers fighting for the right of their children to both parents, not only a story on the Croatian system, but also a very important story on EU system. It’s amazing, but frightening at the same time.”

The documentary can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hz3HCfMAVzM&feature=youtu.be