A discussion with director Fernando Vílchez Rodríguez (Berlinale Shorts) and Maike Höhne, curator of Berlinale Shorts, about the political, social and ecological consequences of the over-exploitation of natural resources committed by the Canadian mining company Candente Copper in the Peruvian jungle.
Supported by the Peruvian government, the firm has been responsible for years for the over-exploitation of gold and other minerals in the Peruvian jungle on the border with Ecuador. Natural resources are being recklessly plundered without any consideration for the environment and the people living there. Most of the water has been polluted. The affected indigenous people have staged a massive fight-back and the region has long since come under public scrutiny. Rather than capitulating to the government’s violent measures to protect the mining company’s shareholders, the indigenous people have retaliated with countermeasures. Similar exploitation is happening in Europe: at Rosa Montania in Romania an entire mountain is being bulldozed in the search for gold.
[Photographs by Heinrich Völkel]
Berlinale Shorts 