Ithaca College

As part of its continuing initiative to bring international films programmed for the 23rd annual festival, the Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival has partnered with Cinemapolis to present Virtual Cinema. 

This week's film is the extraordinary documentary Dying for Gold (Catherine Meyburgh and Richard Pakleppa, South African, 2019). 

The Dying for Gold can be accessed through the link for a small rental fee:  https://cinemapolis.org/film/dying-for-gold 

For over 120 years hundreds of thousands of black men from the countries of Southern Africa have left their families to dig for gold and produce the wealth of South Africa.

Today these mining communities face severe poverty and the world’s greatest epidemic of silicosis and tuberculosis caused by exposure to silica dust in gold mines.

The true cost of South Africa’s wealth is revealed by the juxta-positioning of present day gold miner stories with an archival voice created from state and mining records and repurposed industrial documentaries and propaganda films.

The archival voice further reveals the untold story of how industrialised South Africa was built on a foundation of modern slavery based on a vast system of recruitment that utilized propaganda films since the early 1900’s.

Dying for Gold is also a story of mad love that holds men, women and children through experiences of unspeakable pain and death.

FLEFF: A DIFFERENT ENVIRONMENT