Kadokawa Corporation and Tuttle-Mori Agency from Tokyo bought the rights for the comic book adaptation of the film Bloody Fairy Tale by director and screenwriter Branimir Torij Janković, produced by Centar Film Belgrade. The comic will be 90 pages long, out of the total 370 pages in the collection that carries the name of the legendary manga artist Hishashi Sakaguchi. The circulation of the collection will be 4,000 copies, and the collection will also be published in electronic format (e-book). After the Japanese release, the production and distribution company Centar film will also release a version in Serbian for the domestic audience.
“The adaptation of this work on the international market is proof of the durability and recognition of the quality of Yugoslav cinematography. We hope that the release of the version in Serbian language and the presentation of ‘Bloody Fairy Tale’ in another medium will awaken the interest of new generations and attract them to the film”, said Jadranka Blanuša Vučković, director of Center Film .
The film “Bloody Fairy Tale” is a memory of the victims of the Kragujevac massacre perpetrated by the Germans during WW2, described through events related to a group of boys, street shoe cleaners. Their fate was woven into the atmosphere of the city and the occupation, when the first innocent victims fell, and thousands of workers refused to work for the occupier, so the whole city was exposed to cruel persecutions, mistreatment of innocent citizens and cancellation of regular meals.
. In a skirmish with a partisan detachment on the outskirts of the city, several enemy soldiers are killed, and mass retaliation is ordered: Germans prepare to shoot a hundred of citizens for every soldier killed. An atmosphere of terror and manhunt is emerging in the city. A group of small shoe cleaners refuses to clean the dirty German boots, and they are taken to be shot. Kragujevac becomes a city of black flags and black scarves, with church bells tolling, because there are 8,000 executed people that have to be buried.
The film stars Mira Stupica, Ljubiša Jovanović, Ljuba Tadić, Mija Aleksić, Bata Živojinović and others.