Land of Mine

Martin Zandvliet wrote and directed this account of German prisoners of war handed over by the British into Danish custody after May 1945 and set to lifting mines by hand along the west coast of Jutland. Some of them were 16. The main source was Under tvang, the 1998 book by the historian Helge Hagemann. Shooting ran through the summer of 2014 around Blavand, on the actual beaches, and a real unexploded mine was found on site during the production. Varde municipality put 1.2 million kroner into the film and said it hoped to earn that back through tourism. The local museum bought the sets, and the mine clearance became the subject of its first special exhibition. It played the Platform section in Toronto. At the European Film Awards it won cinematography, costume design and make-up, and it was named Danish film of the year at the Bodil awards. At the 89th Academy Awards in 2017 it was nominated in the foreign language category, where the Iranian film The Salesman won. A good fit if you want the morning after the victory, and what the winning side did with the men it held. Not for viewers who cannot take the scene the BBFC records, in which a man defusing a mine has both arms blown off at the elbow.