Romanian film director Tudor Giugiu is to make a film about the art theft at the Rotterdam Kunsthal when seven valuable paintings were stolen.

The central thrust of the film will be the mother of one of the suspects who admitted she destroyed at least two of the paintings to keep her son out of trouble.

Giurgiu is famous in Romania and is fascinated by the robbery, according to Algemeen Dagblad. ‘What is a Picasso worth to a mother who wants to help her son?’ the AD quotes him as saying.

The paintings, valued at €18m, were stolen on the night of October 15 2012 and are now thought to have been burned.