Land of Mine (2015)

Original title

Under sandet

Directed by

Martin Zandvliet

Genre

drama film, war film, historical film

Country

Germany, Denmark

Runtime

1h 41m

Rated

R

Rating

7.8 of 10 from 1,484 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

After World War II ends, German prisoners of war, many of them teenagers, are forced by Danish officers to clear landmines from beaches in Denmark. The story follows their dangerous and traumatic work as they struggle to survive under harsh conditions.

tensebleakgrittyhistoricalsuspensefulsomberslow-burnemotionally heavy

What happens

Land of Mine (Danish: Under sandet, lit. 'Under the Sand') is a 2015 Danish historical war drama film directed by Martin Zandvliet. It was shown in the Platform section of the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival. It was selected and nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 89th Academy Awards. The film is inspired by real events when over 1.3 million German landmines were cleared from Denmark's shores and fields from May to September 1945 and tells a story of German prisoners of war ordered to clear land mines after World War II in the German Mine Sweeping Administration. It is estimated that more than 2,000 soldiers including a number of teenagers, under the command of Danish officers, removed mines. 149 of them lost their lives during the five months of mine clearing, 165 were severely wounded and 167 lightly wounded. The removal was part of a controversial agreement between the German Commander General Georg Lindemann, the Danish Government and the British Armed Forces, under which German soldiers with experience in defusing mines would be in charge of clearing the mine fields. In retrospect, this activity has been condemned as a war crime since it violated the Geneva Convention of 1929, which states in Article 32 that no prisoner of war must be forced to participate in dangerous or unhealthy labour. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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