For decades, landmine victims remained outside of the nation’s popular consciousness. Today, landmines and rehabilitation medicine profoundly shape public life.

‘Bodies at War’ tracks the lives of soldiers who aspire to become star Paralympians. It allows the viewer to see how soldiers incorporate industrial prosthetics into their bodies through strenuous daily exercises and hear them talk about their dreams of not only walking ‘properly’, but becoming agile sportsmen. The film’s ethnographic portrayal of military medicine and the Otto Bock Corporation shows how nearly every multinational that makes prosthetics vies for the Colombian market; it provides an array of interviews with doctors, physical therapists and young corporate representatives that provides insights into what corporate medicine means for the military and the nation at large.  ‘Bodies at War’ also follows a group of civilians who struggle to receive industrial prosthetic limbs and find their way back to families and friends who they’ve left behind in their pursuits.  The film’ s journey with civilian landmine survivors sheds light on people’s uncanny experiences with phantom limbs, the aftereffects of decentralized healthcare as people maneuver through public health bureaucracies, the meaning of place and what it means to be displaced.

What does it mean to be a full human person in the context of war and who owns the rights to be fully human?

BODIES AT WAR

a colombian landmine story