page_title: Cultural impact of the Falklands War
section_title: Films and television
hierarchical_section_title: Cultural impact of the Falklands War / Arts, entertainment, and electronic media / Films and television
caption_attribution_description: Falkland's War veteran Simon Weston.
context_page_description: The cultural impact of the Falklands War spanned several media in both Britain and Argentina. A number of films and television productions emerged from the conflict. The first Argentine film about the war was Los chicos de la guerra in 1984. The BBC drama Tumbledown told the story of a British officer who got paralysed due to a bullet wound. The computer game Harrier Attack and the naval strategy game Strike Fleet are two examples of Falklands-related games. A number of fictional works were set during the Falklands War, including in Stephen King's novella The Langoliers, in which the character Nick Hopewell is a Falklands veteran. The war provided a wealth of material for non-fiction writers; in the United Kingdom an important account became Max Hastings and Simon Jenkins' The Battle for the Falklands.
  The Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges wrote a short poem, called Juan López y John Ward, about two fictional soldiers, who died in the Falklands, in which he refers to "islands that were too famous". Another Argentine example is "Elegy for the Argentine Dead Boys, in the South Atlantic" by Salvador Oria.
context_section_description: A number of films and television productions emerged from the conflict. Notable examples include:
  In the Episode Burns' Heir on The Simpsons, Krusty the Clown accidentally placed a rerun from his show, thinking it would blend in with the year of the show (1994), instead having him explain the Falkland war.
  Simon Weston, a Welsh Guardsman who had suffered serious burns during the bombing of Sir Galahad, became a popular figure due to British media coverage. A series of television documentaries followed the progress of rehabilitation and eventual recovery from his injuries, the first being Simon's War (6 April 1983) in BBC One's QED series.
  The 1983 British film The Ploughman's Lunch is set in the media and political world at the time of the war, which it compares to the 1956 Suez War.
  The first Argentine film about the war was Los chicos de la guerra (The Boys of the War), directed by Bebe Kamin in 1984.
  The film version of Whoops Apocalypse (1986) features a conflict very similar to the Falklands War between the United Kingdom and the fictional Caribbean country of Maguadora over the equally fictional Santa Maya.
  The BBC drama Tumbledown (31 May 1988)  told the story of Robert Lawrence MC, a junior officer in the Scots Guards (Colin Firth) left paralysed down his left side by a gunshot wound to the head inflicted by an Argentine soldier on Mount Tumbledown, during the final push for Stanley, and his adjustment to disabled life after the war.
  Harley Cokeliss' horror film Dream Demon (1988) depicts a planned marriage between the main character and a Falklands War veteran.
  The 1989 British film Resurrected, directed by Paul Greengrass, had David Thewlis as a British soldier previously presumed dead in the war reappearing alive weeks after the end of the conflict.
  In the American/British film For Queen and Country (1989) starring Denzel Washington, Reuben is a St. Lucia-born British ex-para finding it difficult to adjust to civilian life some years after the war. The film deals with the poverty and crime that Reuben encounters back home and how he is ignored by both society and government despite his service.
  The BBC film An Ungentlemanly Act (13 June 1992) depicts the events leading up to and during the initial occupation of the Islands by the Argentine Army. Based on true events, the film was produced to mark the 10th anniversary of the conflict and starred actors Ian Richardson as Governor Rex Hunt and Bob Peck as Major Mike Norman.
  The Cracker episode "Brotherly Love" (1995) features a psychologically damaged veteran from the Falklands War, Barney (Ron Donachie), who gets into a brief argument with DS Jimmy Beck (Lorcan Cranitch) and flies into an insane rage, when Beck shows no interest in Barney's exploits in the war.
  Although the drama by Ian Curteis that became known simply as The Falklands Play was originally commissioned by the BBC in 1983, it was then temporarily set aside until 1985. The Corporation subsequently gave a number of reasons why it could not be made, including that it would have been broadcast too close to the 1987 General Election. Curteis maintained that the generally sympathetic portrayal of Margaret Thatcher and his refusal to include material that was contrary to both the official record and what his interviews with the major protagonists had revealed, went against a perceived BBC anti-government bias, citing the fact that Tumbledown - which he and others claimed was more "anti-establishment" - was made and broadcast. Curteis' play was eventually recorded in a truncated form and screened by the digital satellite channel BBC Four in 2002.
  The 2005 Argentine film Iluminados por el fuego (literally "Lit by Fire", released in English speaking countries as Blessed by Fire), directed by Tristán Bauer and starring Gastón Pauls, is a docudrama based on the autobiographical novel of the same name by Argentine Falklands veteran Edgardo Esteban, who fought in the conflict as an 18-year-old conscript. It received a San Sebastián Festival special award. The film tells about a veteran's memories, re-awakened a
caption: Simon Weston, British war veteran.
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