MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

“Crazy for the flag”.

A television film, half fiction half reality, recalling the plight and miseries of Argentine Falklands veterans and their families since the end of the South Atlantic conflict in 1982 is currently being filmed in Rio Gallegos, Santa Cruz province in the extreme south of Patagonia.

Buenos Aires newspaper "La Nación" reports that the two hour production, "Crazy for the flag" is sponsored by the Argentine Committee of Relatives of Fallen in Malvinas and South Atlantic Islands and the Argentine Cinema Institute, with veteran film maker Julio Cardoso as director. This month the filming crew expects to move to the Falkland Islands to register the building of the Argentine Memorial in Darwin Cemetery.

"When the Committee asked me to direct the project, I understood the purpose of the film was to transmit the necessity to recover the memory of their children and to help build a better country", said Mr, Cardoso who is currently filming some scenes in "Estancia 3 de Enero", close to Rio Gallegos.

"The script reflects what post-war meant for the hundreds of relatives, the long road to achieving the building of a Memorial", said Mr. Cardoso who revealed that three main sources converge on the film: the struggle behind the construction of the Darwin Memorial, next-of-kin testimonies of the post-war and a fiction component made up of four Argentine conscripts during the final days of the war.

This is not Mr. Cardoso's first experience with the Falklands' issue, in Buenos Aires Channel 7 he produced a several chapters' show based on the letters a conscript in Falklands wrote to his parents in Argentina. That is how he met one of the main actors of the current film, Andres Fernandez a Falklands veteran who since 1988 lives in Rio Gallegos and also helped with the script.

Mr. Cardoso indicated that besides scarce financing, "the project has been possible thanks to many institutions such as the Armed Forces, Frontier Gendarmerie and the provincial government of Santa Cruz that have generously contributed with transport and elements for the recreation of the war scenery".

La Nación finally reports that 70% of the reinforced concrete blocks of the Memorial to be transported and assembled in Darwin have been finished, and this month of December will begin to be shipped to Falklands with Mr. Cardoso's crew filming the whole operation.