The De-Miners On a 300-Year Mission to Clear Verdun's WWI Battlefields
“Zone Rouge” is the name given to a forested stretch of the Verdun countryside so heavily polluted with mortars, bombs and shells from WW1 that it remains closed to the public today.
Director Dominique van Olm met the brave team of ‘démineurs’ committed to cleaning up the century-old battlefield to produce a sensitive, beautifully shot film accompanied by a moving soundscape - our latest Free of the Week.
Here’s a word from her on how the film came about and the lessons it can teach us, along with some behind-the-scenes shots:
Edit: ‘Free of the Week’ is now ‘Short of the Week’.
In the fall of 2016 my curiosity grew as I had heard about an area in France where people were removing active bomb shells left in the ground from World War One. The idea that a war fought over 100 years ago was still affecting people today fascinated me and seemed like a unique opportunity to tell a present day story that reflected on the past.
Before too long, myself and two friends found ourselves on a plane to France en route to meet some of the de-miners tasked with the clean up of the land, a job expected to take another 200 years to complete.
I think Zone Rouge offers an important reminder regarding the aftermath of war, the long lasting path of destruction it leaves behind even centuries later. History is an important teacher, and I find that often, it is a subject that is dismissed as boring or irrelevant. If people can educate themselves on the past, only then can we expect and hope to change the future to make it a better place and avoid making the same mistakes.
