Land of Mine + Q&A
Join us for a screening of Land of Mine and a discussion of how landmine clearance allows countries to recover from war.
The Academy Award-nominated Land of Mine focuses on two of the legacies of war: hatred and landmines. Nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards and winner of awards at multiple festivals around the world, Land of Mine was inspired by real events and tells the story of German prisoners of war sent to clear land mines in Denmark after World War II.
The film tells the little-known story of how Europe was cleared of landmines at the end of World War II. Its contemporary relevance is that today, across the globe, millions of people continue to suffer because of landmines that were planted in conflicts that ended 30 or 40 years ago.
Watch the trailer here.
Following the screening we are joined by Mikael Christian Rieks, the Producer of Land of Mine, and James Cowan, CEO of the world’s largest humanitarian mine clearance organisation The HALO Trust. It will be moderated by Thorold Barker, Editor, Europe, Middle East and Africa for the Wall Street Journal.
The HALO trust was founded in 1988 in Afghanistan and has grown to employ over 8,000 staff in more than 20 countries clearing landmines, clusters bombs, IEDs and other explosive debris left behind after conflict. It saves lives, provides jobs and brings communities back to life.
Chair
Thorold Barker is a British financial journalist and author who was editor of the Lex page of the Financial Times before assuming the editorship of the Wall Street Journal’s European Edition. His work has included investigative pieces on Wall Street and The City, as well as travel writing.
Speakers
Mikael Christian Rieks, graduated from the the Copenhagen Film & Media School in 1992. In the years following he became a leading TV and documentary producer in Denmark. He joined the producer team at Nordisk Film in 2003, where he produced the internationally acclaimed documentary films including, Ghosts of Cité Soleil, Overcoming and the feature film Karla’s World. His latest production films is: The Outsider, released in March 2018.
James Cowan was a soldier. He joined The Black Watch from Oxford in 1986, serving in Berlin, Northern Ireland, Zimbabwe, Lesotho and Hong Kong. He helped plan the Kosovo operation in 1999. He commanded in Iraq in 2004. He returned to Iraq in 2006 and commanded in Helmand, Afghanistan in 2009-10. He planned the military Olympic security operation of 2012. As a major general, he commanded the 3rd Division. In 2015 he become HALO’s CEO.
