Minefield
'When I got back from the war I was a stone. I couldn't feel anything.' Argentinian veteran
'The islands looked very beautiful, much like Scotland with barren land and mountains. But that was just a blurred image through my binoculars.' British veteran
In 1982, Argentina and the UK fought the Malvinas - Falklands war. The battle was over after 74 days, but the conflict is still alive.
Argentinian writer and director Lola Arias brought her acclaimed show My Life After to Brighton Festival 2013. Now she returns with the world premiere of her new work about the Falkland Islands/Islas Malvinas, developed with and performed by Argentinian and British veterans of the 1982 conflict.
In her trademark style – political, playful and highly personal – Arias brings together soldiers who fought on opposite sides, giving them an opportunity to share their first hand-experiences on a battlefield. Merging film, re-enactment and documentary theatre, Minefield blurs the lines between truth and fiction to give a fascinating insight into how and what people remember, and how war continues to cast a long shadow over the lives of its protagonists.
'War doesn’t interest me, post- war interests me. What matters to me is what happens to a person who went through that experience. What memory has done, what it has erased, what it has transformed. Some of these men have become professional storytellers and my work was and is to undo this in order to know what happened to them.’ Lola Arias on Minefield
‘Lola Arias’ work is always personal, interesting, unsentimental and utterly gripping' Tom Wicker, The Stage
TRAILER MINEFIELD by Lola Arias from Lola Arias on Vimeo.
"This project is all about memories, how they are still important for them today even if it’s 33 years later. How even if it was a war that lasted only two months, it’s still present every day for them."
