Arica

Chileans are asked about their definition of the word (and the concept of) "power", as they answer images flash on the screen of powerful and powerless figures in Chilean history.

In this documentary film a team of researchers examine the social contexts that influenced the emergence and permanence of heavy metal music in Chile, Argentina, Mexico and Peru. Colonialism, dictatorships, terrorism and neoliberal exploitation serve as points of reference for how heavy metal in the region has been directly linked to each country's social and political context.

The exploitation of the country’s mineral wealth is projected as the most reasonable solution to deal with the economic crisis that plagues Greece. The Greek state has ceded its mining rights over 31.700 ha of land in northern Halkidiki, a region rich in gold, copper and other metals, to the Canadian multinational company Eldorado Gold. However, many of the region’s inhabitants, who have been resisting the construction of a goldmine for years, claim that this investment will cause irreparable damage to the environment and the benefits will be fewer than the losses. “Cassandra’s Treasure” presents a detailed picture of the modern Greek state before and during the crisis period.

From a historic genocide trial to the overthrow of a president, the sweeping story of mounting resistance played out in Guatemala’s recent history is told through the actions and perspectives of the majority indigenous Mayan population, who now stand poised to reimagine their society.

Campamento Sol Naciente

Crónicas desde La Arboleda

Unconventional portrayal of mining in the Swedish Lapland ore fields, a powerful image and sound symphony that can be experienced both as a documentary and symbolic work.

This film documents the coal miners' strike against the Brookside Mine of the Eastover Mining Company in Harlan County, Kentucky in June, 1973. Eastover's refusal to sign a contract (when the miners joined with the United Mine Workers of America) led to the strike, which lasted more than a year and included violent battles between gun-toting company thugs/scabs and the picketing miners and their supportive women-folk. Director Barbara Kopple puts the strike into perspective by giving us some background on the historical plight of the miners and some history of the UMWA. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with New York Women in Film & Television in 2004.

Lee Anne Schmitt explores California's landscape and past to document the history of one-time boom towns built and abandoned by the industries that necessitated their creation. Sold as a limitless land expansive with free opportunity, California was actually, from its onset, fissured by the interwoven needs of private and public interests. Schmitt's film covers various locations through time, as the major industries of the early 20th century (mining, lumber, oil) give way to the military, eventually leading to multinational corporations, and the use of small towns as satellites for growing urban metropolises.

With the memory of an online relationship he had with a girl in his teenage years, @YOU embarks on a journey in which he reflects on distance, love, fragility and the uncertainty of knowing the whereabouts of the girl who, a few years ago, said goodbye saying that she would end her life.

In 1879, Bolivia lost its access to the sea in a war. When I was a child I did not understand how we had lost it; he thought the Chileans had taken him away in buckets. It is a diary towards interior landscapes, myths, characters and contradictions in a country that relives this loss every day.

Documentary-essay short film about a inner/outter trip to the flowery desert in the north of Chile. A student film by Gabriel Lizama AKA Liz Taylor.

Life in the isolated town of Charrúa is dominated by the presence of a large power plant that distributes energy to most of Chile. A little boy hunts rabbits, residents demand better electrical coverage at a town meeting, a woman waters the plants outside her house and a local radio station relays the day's happenings. At night, wildlife is captured on camera, along with strange bursts of light that momentarily illuminate a countryside criss-crossed with pylons and cables. And ever present is the insidious hum of electricity.

Travel to the ice mountains of Chile to discover the secrets of the puma (aka panther, mountain lion and cougar) the area's largest predator. Discover how this elusive cat survives and follow the dramatic fate of a puma and her cubs.

El Guardián de Los Andes

Brazil is one of the most dangerous countries for environmentalists. The rural community of Belisário holds the country's second largest bauxite reserve, right below one of the most bio-diverse areas in the world: the Atlantic Forest. The small community was shaken when the beloved Gilberto, a Franciscan Friar, received a death threat followed by the lines: "you've been talking against mining way too much". PT: O Brasil é um dos países mais perigosos do mundo para defensores do meio ambiente. Em Minas Gerais, a comunidade rural de Belisário abriga a segunda maior reserva de bauxita do país, em uma das áreas de maior biodiversidade do mundo: a Mata Atlântica. A tranquilidade do pequeno vilarejo foi abalada quando Frei Gilberto, um franciscano que dedica sua vida à preservação da natureza, recebeu uma ameaça de morte com o seguinte aviso: "você tem falado demais contra a mineração".

Experimental Short Film Documentary made during the social outbreak, follows 2 Deaf people walking through the outbreak in Plaza Dignidad.

An interview with the president of Chile conducted by Roberto Rossellini in 1971, but broadcast only after his death.

The mining industry, which always had been “sponsor” and “financier” of the soccer clubs in the Ruhr valley during the post-war period, doesn’t exist anymore nowadays in that form. Many of the once glorious clubs which dominated German soccer until the 1970s faded into obscurity without financial backers. The documentary “Im Westen ging die Sonne auf" ("The sun had risen in the west“) shows the history of the “Revierfußball” from after the second World War until the decline of the mining industry and recalls legendary players and forgotten clubs. The film shows especially how deeply rooted the sport was back then in the entire lifestyle of the Ruhr area - in private life as well as in society - and how structural change also left clearly visible marks in sports. With pictures from back then, interviews with contemporary witnesses, and footage of original locations nowadays, a contemporary document of German post-war history, by taking the example of soccer, has been created.

The real estate industry has destabilized the natural surroundings of the city of Concón, on the Chilean coast, forcing the inhabitants and landscapes of the region to find new ways to adapt and survive. “Nidal” depicts the cohabitating of species and the accelerated transformation of the landscapes due to human occupation.