MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

“My best enemy” recalls 1978 conflict

Chilean movie director Alex Bowen will begin filming next February events recreating the 1978 atmosphere in Patagonia when Chile and Argentina almost went to war over disputes islands in the Beagle Channel to the south of Magellan Strait.

The scrip of the film "My best enemy" describes the young members of two patrols, Argentine and Chilean, in Patagonia, who become "friends" and nurture a profound human relation that goes beyond the existing tension between the two countries on the verge of a full conflict.

Argentine actor Jorge Román who plays a leading role speaking with the Chilean press said that a film of this kind "is a greater thrust for the real integration of the Argentine and Chilean than any political rhetoric".

Actually both the Chilean and Argentine armies are collaborating with the film to be co-produced by Argentina, Chile and Spain through the Ibermedia program that sponsors audiovisual arts in Spanish America.

In December 1978 when both countries were under military rule, Argentina and Chile almost went to war over three islands, Picton, Nueva and Lennox, in the Beagle channel a conflict that was stopped at last minute when tanks had began rolling by Pope John Paul II. Mediation talks began in January 1979 in Montevideo.

In 1984 Chile and Argentine subscribed the Peace and Friendship Treaty which helped put an end to the extreme Patagonia disputes.

This year precisely remembers the 25th anniversary of those events.