Radical Love
Kosovo 1999, a Balkan country, at the crossroads of cultures, where East meets West, Islam collides with Christianity.
Yet another war is escalating.
Can two young lovers, a Muslim girl and a Christian boy, break the cycle of hate, while historic events unfold to tear them apart? Can they overthrow a dictator with humor as a weapon?
Radical Love: an award winning play debuted to sold out audiences and became a film script.
Audiences SaY
“We didn’t hear about that on the evening news in the US, did we? Well worth my time. You should make a movie.”
“I had no idea why the US was involved…and how it all happened…thank you so much for revealing….”
“Amazing that a group of college kids overthrew a dictator, without a shot fired. We Americans missed out on this moment in history.”
“Your play helped me understand what really happened in my country... only there it was Muslims and Hindus... you really showed that intolerance is a global problem.”
“Radical Love is based on many interviews I had with people of Serbia and Kosovo, Christians and Muslims, during the 1999 USA spearheaded NATO bombing of Belgrade. I wanted to give a voice to the voiceless and show how innocent people suffer when politicians make mistakes —and how a group of determined kids could change the world.
After all, truth is stranger than fiction.”
21:00 HRS, March 24th, 1999…
Flying tens of thousands of feet above any possible anti-aircraft reach, NATO and American pilots begin a 78-day bombardment of selected government targets in Belgrade, the capital of Yugoslavia, an independent nation in southern Europe. The mission is to drive President Slobodan “Slobo” Milosevic from power. Slobo's crimes, among others, include an attempt to cleanse Kosovo, to the south, of over a million Muslim Albanian immigrant-settlers. After decades of radical Muslim brutality, Orthodox Christian Kosovars have been fleeing their own country.
The NATO/US bombing interrupts widespread anti-Milosevic revolution orchestrated by the student-led non-violent movement OTPOR. The movement already on the verge of ousting Milosevic— however, OTPOR’s main weapons are less lethal. They use humor, skits, concerts, placards, marches, and chants such as “Gotov Je, Gotov Je, Gotov Je…” (He is Finished!)
Meet Nikola and Ermina. He's a 20-year-old OTPOR leader, always keeping one step ahead of Slobo's Secret Police, and a Christian refugee from Kosovo. She's a Muslim Kosovar college student who ran away in horror after discovering her father's new underground business: trafficking stolen Christian body parts.
Where do Nikola and Ermina go to escape the bombs? What happens next? And how, after the revolutionary destruction of a nation and the overthrow of a despot, does the USA ensure that Kosovo becomes a new Muslim country in modern Europe?
Radical Love was written by Andjela Kessler, a former journalist who covered the conflict for months. To do so Ms. Kessler conducted hundreds of interviews with Serbs & Kosovars. Many put their lives in extra danger just by talking to the Western media.
Radical Love tells the story you never saw on American TV.
“Radical Love is my contribution to my home and to the world, in the honor of those who loved in the eyes of war.”
