The World Is Not (a) Mine

The inhabitants work in inhuman conditions mining metals on the Cerro Rico mountain. Deprived of any workers' rights, abandoned by the state, treated as cheap labour, they earn just enough money not to starve to death. Hardly any miner survives to thirty-fi ve in good health, many die at that age. The situation forces Juvenal to work in the mine, even though the boy is only eleven years old. Claudia and Hoper, who have managed to avoid mining accidents, are waiting for their turn. A selfproclaimed teenage priest heroically tries to force hope into people. Their world is made of rocks bursting under the infl uence of daily explosions of dynamite, a bedtime story, a collapsing mountain that took the lives of eight million people over the course of several centuries. The inhabitants are united by the proximity of death. They grow up and age with a sense of the delicacy of life that has crumbled around them many times. They accept the will of the mountain, believing in its consciousness. Legend has it that the mountain man lost his mountain woman when the people robbed her of all the minerals, and by failing to cope with the pain, he takes revenge on those who plunder his land. A visual look at never-ending exploitation, and at the same time, a comment on reality for the world that stares away. An anatomy of the dark past that won't go away, everyday life fi lled with the stuffi ness of tight tunnels and a metallic aftertaste of air. The mountain: the home for those who still dream.