Dwellings and the Past
317 Dundas St W, Toronto, ON M5T 1G4, Canada
43.65358019999999
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Description
Whatever you thought an ethnographic film could be, a viewing of ElDorado XXI’s take on the genre will leave very few preconceptions unscathed. Director Salomé Lamas invites us to descend into the cavernous bowels of a Peruvian mountain teeming with miners toiling away in the hopes of earning a modest income, only allowing us to emerge, gasping for air, once the film suddenly shifts in the second half to the lives lead on the country’s surface. ElDorado XXI goes beyond asking for empathy and stirring consciousness, creating an altogether new bodily experience.
EL DORADO XXI
Director: Salomé Lamas
Country: Portugal/France Year: 2016 Lenght: 125’ Genre: Documentary
Synopsis: EL DORADO XXI is a haunting and mysterious ethnographic reality cut-up. Set in the highest settlement in the world, La Rinconada y Cerro Lunar (5500 m), in the Peruvian Andes; an illusion leads men to self-destruction, moved by the same interests, dealt with the same tools and means in contemporaneity as it has been dealt in the ancient times.
EL DORADO XXI is a para fiction attempt combining a sensory ethnographic approach with critical media practices.
Some 80,000 people live in crowded dwellings without the minimum for subsistence farming; they foster the hope that one day they will find the means to resettle elsewhere. There are enough stories of fortunes made randomly to keep hope and the fever alive. As a measure of safety, the miners chew large quantities of coca leaves. They carry the leaves in their pockets daily to deceive hunger and prevent exhaustion. If they live to work against the next day, it is common to celebrate with alcohol and to frequent the local brothels. This becomes a quick road to self-destruction with the only motivation being to soften the harshness of everyday life.
Under cachorreo the miner works for 30 days without remuneration and on the 31st day (if lucky) he is allowed to explore the mine during four hours for his own profit. The little precious metal he might carry down the mountain has now to be separated from the rock through antiquated methods using highly toxic levels of mercury. Then the value of the gold powder has to be negotiated in a non-regulated establishment within the community and the miner will be offered the minimum amount possible in return.
The system is an unpredictable lottery; nevertheless cachorreo means that miners and employers avoid “certain taxes”. It is a mental game - the possibility of generating a small fortune motivates the miners. To believe in and aspire for “something bigger” can be a greater motivation than a miserable paycheck at the end of the month, a constant low wage would simply not be worth a life of danger.
La Rinconada Y Cerro Lunar are doomed towns, which will very shortly become ghost towns since the mines are running low on its precious metal.
You are alone. You hear nothing, you know nothing and you expect nothing.
A mysterious film dwelling on the complexity of the human being; increasingly stimulating the viewer to reflect and contemplate, the film is constantly seeking an active audience. It will carry you on a hallucinatory journey. You will certainly not be indifferent to it.
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Start:
2017-06-10T21:00:00-04:00
End:
2017-06-10T22:30:00-04:00
Category
Film
Tickets
Students & Seniors (with ID)
8.99
CAD
Regular Screening
11.09
CAD
All-Access Pass
79.34
CAD