Testimonies and audiovisual narratives from the islands. About the film “Exile of Malvinas”

Abstract

There are few references in Argentine filmography about the Malvinas where the islanders are the axis of the testimonies. Federico J. Palma's film addresses this area of ​​vacancy based on the stories of Alexander Betts, James Peck and Mike Bingham. The first two are natives of Malvinas. And the third is a British national and in the documentary he tells of his complex work experience in the Malvinas. The three, for various reasons, were forced to leave the islands and move to Continental Argentina. These three interviewees constitute the three problematic axes of the film: the dispute over sovereignty, the way in which the de facto government of the islands treats inhabitants with dissident opinions about the British occupation and the indiscriminate fishing that it grants to the colonial authorities. economic benefits, to the clear detriment of the Argentine Sea. Thus, the film allows us to think about the construction of national identities and the different aspects of the exercise of colonialism.
Cinema always activates meaning production mechanisms that seek to impose an interpretative framework on the historical events that are narrated. Although the dispute over the Malvinas Islands, Sandwich Islands, Georgia Islands and the surrounding maritime spaces dates back to the beginning of the 19th century, the war confrontation of 1982 between Argentina and the United Kingdom marks a turning point and emerges as a vital explanatory event of the rights over the archipelago for both nations.
Many of these audiovisual memories are subaltern narratives that seek to enter into a dialectical relationship with the prevailing collective narratives of meaning. As Enzo Traverso writes, “the visibility and recognition of a memory also depend on the strength of its bearers” (2011). In this same game, the arguments of these stories emerge that seek another approach to the complexity of the Malvinas Question.