The Thief Lord

The Thief Lord is a 2006 family drama film directed by Richard Claus. The screenplay was written by Richard Claus and Daniel Musgrave, based on the 2000 novel of the same title, by German author Cornelia Funke. It was a joint production of Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., Future Films Limited, Comet Film, and Thema Production and is distributed by Warner Bros. The DVD was released on 14 March 2006 and the one-disc edition includes a theatrical trailer that ran in theatres in Europe and Mosca's cartoon from the film by itself. The film follows two recently orphaned brothers, Bo (Jasper Harris) and Prosper (Aaron Johnson), dumped in the care of a cruel aunt and uncle, who escape their impending separation by running off to Venice. Hiding in the canals and alleyways of the city, the boys are befriended by a gang of young urchins and their enigmatic masked leader, the Thief Lord (Rollo Weeks). Plot When Prosper and Boniface's parents die, their aunt Esther plans to adopt five-year-old Bo and send 12-year-old Prosper away to boarding school. But before she can separate the two, Prosper takes Bo to Venice, the city about which their mother had often told them stories. In Venice, the boys meet the Thief Lord, a mask-wearing teenager named Scipio. The Thief Lord invites the boys to come to his hideout, an abandoned cinema called the Stella, which is also home to three orphaned children Scipio has rescued: Hornet, Riccio, and Mosca. Meanwhile, the boys' aunt and uncle, Esther and Max Hartlieb have traveled to Venice to find their nephews and hired Victor Getz to help. Scipio's newest client, a mysterious man known as the Conte, asks them to steal a wooden wing, a fragment of the long-lost merry-go-round of the Merciful Sisters. Scipio asks the gang to help stake out the mansion where the wing is kept while he goes away for a few days. Getz discovers that Scipio is not a poor orphan at all, but the son of the wealthy Dr. Massimo. When Scipio doesn't show up for the stakeout the next day, the gang is confused. They find out that Scipio has lied to them about being an orphan and that all his 'loot' is from his father's house.