Action 37

Once We Were Pitmen

2024

Black dust, shrill metallic noises, dark tunnels, muscular bodies – all that is the past. At the end of 2018, extraction of coal throughout Germany came to an end. That same year, the voices of the emerging climate protest movement Fridays for Future grew louder. Against the backdrop of these media and socio-political events, the film follows five miners on their tragic, humorous and heartwarming search for a new role in life.

A cielo abierto, derechos minados

2009

The documentary registers the reaction of the inhabitant the communities of Imbabura, Zamora, Chinchipe and others Ecuadorian provinces under the influence of mining. The testimonies of the leaders and the protagonists tell the facts that are at the center of this story.

Bauxita

2023

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".

500 Years

2017

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.

Im Westen ging die Sonne auf

2002

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.

Waste Land

2001

By 2045, twenty localities in Germany will be resettled because of brown coal open pit mining. The film Waste Land follows the inhabitants of three villages in the Rhenish coal-mining district during their last years in their old home and documents how an entire region prepares for its collective relocation.

Bischofferode. Das Treuhand Trauma

2018

In 1990, when Bischofferode entered the market economy, potash production in East Germany was in third place in the world's export ranking and in West Germany in fourth place. Bischofferöder Kalisalz is of a special quality and the plant therefore had loyal customers in Western Europe, especially in Scandinavia, even before the fall of the Wall. In the West, there is a major competitor - BASF subsidiary Kali und Salz AG from Kassel. The film reconstructs the mega-deal in one of the world's most important raw materials markets. The so-called potash merger was the biggest economic deal of German reunification, which has cost the taxpayer almost two billion euros to date. The Free State of Thuringia - the federal state with the best potash deposits in Germany - is still the big loser of the mega-deal today. Thuringia may be rich, but it loses almost all its potash mines, along with Bischofferode, and now has to spend millions of euros each year to rehabilitate and secure its mines.

The Devil's Miner

2005

'The Devil's Miner' tells the story of 14-year-old Basilio who worships the devil for protection while working in a Bolivian silver mine to support his family.

Uhelný lom

1952

The Wild

2019

Newly into addiction recovery, an urgent threat emerges to spur filmmaker, Mark Titus back to the Alaskan wilderness - where the people of Bristol Bay and the world's last intact wild salmon runs face devastation if a massive copper mine is constructed.

Harlan County U.S.A.

1977

This film documents the coal miners' strike against the Brookside Mine of the Eastover Mining Company in Harlan County, Kentucky in June, 1973. Eastovers 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.

Mountain of Gold

2025

Gold fever has gripped northern Niger. In search of the precious metal, and despite the risks, an army of researchers has invaded the sites of interest. While camps are set up and dismantled as rumours of new leads spread, Moussa and his companions are banking on the Ikazan vein.

The Land of Mine

2016

Republic of Finland is promoting clean technology by organizing Green Mining seminars where foreign experts tell us how the development of the world is becoming increasingly expensive by 2050. The Earth is running out of resources and mining companies have to use increasingly low-grade metal deposits. Finland aims to be a model country for environmentally friendly mining. Its pioneer project is Talvivaara, which uses new biotechnology to extract nickel, zinc and uranium. Through several charismatic characters, the documentary film The Land Of Mine follows the rise of the biggest nickel mine in Western Europe and the ensuing disasters whose effects continue to reverberate in the nation.

The Cost of Cobalt

2021

In the cobalt mining areas of Katanga in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), babies are being born with horrific birth defects. Scientists and doctors are finding increasing evidence of environmental pollution from industrial mining which, they believe, may be the cause of a range of malformations from cleft palate to some so serious the baby is stillborn. More than 60% of the world’s reserves of cobalt are in the DRC and this mineral is essential for the production of electric car batteries, which may be the key to reducing carbon emissions and to slowing climate change. In The Cost of Cobalt we meet the doctors treating the children affected and the scientists who are measuring the pollution. Cobalt may be part of the global solution to climate change, but is it right that Congo’s next generation pay the price with their health? Many are hoping that the more the world understands their plight, the more pressure will be put on the industry here to clean up its act.

La Catastrophe de Liévin

2025