FAQ

The kidnappers probably would ask for a ransom.

Once the kidnappers got the kids in the van and drove off you can hear them celebrating and talking: "I'll bet. One phone call. With nine kids, all the money will come floating from the bloody sky."

This film is loosely based on the 1972 Faraday School kidnapping of a teacher and her class by Edwin John Eastwood and Robert Clyde Boland. Edwin John Eastwood and Robert Clyde Boland entered the school armed with a sawn-off shotgun at about 3:00pm, and forced the teacher, 20-year-old Mary Gibbs, and her six pupils (girls aged between 5 and 10) into a red delivery van. They were driven off into a remote area in the bush. The kidnappers left a note at the school threatening to kill all of the hostages unless a $1,000,000 cash ransom was paid.

That evening, the Premier of Victoria, Dick Hamer, announced that the State Government was prepared to pay the ransom. The Victorian Education Minister and future Premier, Lindsay Thompson, arrived at the scene and waited alone to personally deliver the ransom but it was never collected. In the early hours of the next morning, the kidnappers told Gibbs they were going to collect the ransom and left her and the pupils.

When they were gone, Gibbs managed to kick the door panel out with her heavy, platform-heeled leather boots and escape with the children in the dark, finding help a few kilometres away. Eastwood and Boland were captured by heavily armed Victoria Police officers after an extensive manhunt.

The story whom this film is loosely based, took place in Faraday, Victoria, Australia. The filming locations took place in Bairnsdale, Victoria, Australia.

The group leader wore a Father Christmas mask. The three other group members wore Duck, Pussy Cat and Mouse masks.