Special screening of Versmė  

All movies

Theatre of War

“Theatre of War” tells the story of how six veterans from the Malvinas / Falklands War came together to make a film. Almost thirty-five years after the conflict, three British and three Argentine veterans spent months together discussing their war memories and then rehearsing their re-enactment.

The Malvinas / Falklands War only lasted seventy-four days, from 2 April to 14 June 1982, but its consequences continue to this day. The war ended with the victory of the British forces and almost a thousand casualties between both sides. But the sovereignty of the islands is still disputed.

 This film is a way of showing the whole social experiment of making an artistic project with one-time enemies of war: the auditions to find the protagonists, the first meetings and discussions with them, the theatrical re-enactments of their memories in different scenarios: a swimming pool, a construction site, a military regiment; and scenes with them being confronted by different people: school children, psychologists, young actors. All these scenes in the film are at the same time authentic and artificial. Sometimes it looks like it’s happening for the first time, sometimes it’s a highly rehearsed situation.

 The film playfully switches between reality and fiction, spontaneity and acting. It explores how to transform a soldier into an actor, how to turn war experiences into a story, how to show the collateral effects of war. The movie brings together former enemies to perform their wartime and post-war nightmares.

 Awards

 Berlin International Film Festival – CICAE Award (Forum Programme), Prize of the Ecumenical Jury, 2018

 Lola Arias is a writer, theater director, artist and performer. She collaborates with people from different background (war veterans, former communists, Bulgarian children, etc.) in theatre, literature, music, film and art projects. Her productions play with the overlap zones between reality and fiction.

 Since 2007, she develops her work in the field of documentary theatre. Some of her most famous works created on different world stages are: Mi vida después (2009) based on the biography of six performers who re-enact their parents’ youth during the dictatorship in Argentina; That Enemy Within (2010) – a project about identity made in collaboration with two identical twins; The Year I Was Born (2012) is based on biographies of people born during Pinochet’s dictatorship. Melancolía y Manifestaciones (2012), a play about her mother’s depression.

 She also does films and art installations. She created several urban intervention projects with Stefan Kaegi from world famous theatre collective Rimini Protokoll. Together with Ulises Conti, she composes and plays music. She published poetry, fiction and plays. Lola Arias’ works have been shown at many festivals around the globe, she’s often invited to stage performances at the most prominent theatres in Argentina as well as Europe.

 Filmography

Veterans Installation (5 short films), 2014

 

 

Film sessions

09.28 Friday
  • Skalvija (Vilnius) 19:00


Information

With: Lou Armour, David Jackson, Rubén Otero, Sukrim Rai, Gabriel Sagastume, Marcelo Vallejo
Director: Lola Arias
Screenplay: Lola Arias
Cinematography: Manuel Abramovich
Editing: Anita Remón, Alejo Hoijman
Sound: Sofía Straface (ASA)
Researchers: Luz Algranti, Sofía Medici
Producers: Gema Juárez Allen, Alejandra Grinschpun, Bettina Walter, Ingmar Trost, Pedro Saleh
Production: Gema Films
Coproduction: BWP, Sutor Kolonko, Sake Argentina, SWR-ARTE
Argentina, Spain, 2018, 82 min.