Educational Media Reviews Online

This documentary in Spanish with English subtitles shows the members of a Bolivian silver mining cooperative as they work 12-hour days in unsafe, unhealthy conditions with no insurance. Working conditions are described as “medieval,” and silicosis is shown and described as the price for working in the mines for even a few years. Boys often start working as miners in their early teens. A brief history of COMIBOL, the failed multi-mineral corporation that shut down in 1985, is included. There is a striking contrast between the miners’ opinions of themselves as hard-working men with a strong sense of solidarity and some officials’ descriptions of them as uneducated, uncultivated, and nearly animalistic.

The audio and video qualities are excellent, as is the editing. The improvement in working conditions as the ore is moved to the transportation depot, then to the refinery in Peru (Bolivia has no refineries), and the London exchange is shown without comment, which is more effective than any voiceover would have been. The death of about 300 miners a year and the description of Bolivia as a sort of deity that requires the sacrifice of a miner a day are also allowed to stand on their own. This documentary is rather long to be used in a classroom setting, but it could be part of a series that followed a showing with a panel or group discussion or as a “jumping-off” point for further research by college students. A reservation about use with high school students: the graphic chewing of coca leaves, drinking of alcohol, and propitiation of “El Tío,” a demonic god of the mountain, could be controversial in some communities.

Awards

• Award, Human Rights Film Festival, Paris, 2006