Trailer
"But the barequero has terrible competition: the dredger, that knows, that is capable, that has no respect for the land nor the river, that does not suffer from hunger and has muscles of steel that do the job without fatigue".
Eduardo Cote Lamus
Journal of the Alto San Juan and the Atrato Rivers
Talking Hands
It has been an honor to work with the people of Chocó on the documentary Talking Hands (opera prima). The film portrays the region's exuberant landscapes—a place where, for over five hundred years, gold has been extracted and transformed into jewelry. This rare convergence of extraction and jewelry-making occurs at the intersection of Indigenous and Afro-descendant Maroon cultures.
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The biogeographic region of Chocó is not only one of the planet’s lungs but also one of its most biologically diverse areas. However, its nature, people, and culture are currently under serious threat from illegal and mechanized gold mining.
Trailer
Making-of
The jewelry tradition and the illegal exploitation of gold in the biogeographic region of Chocó, Colombia, are narrated, questioned, and analyzed by diverse local actors. Their accounts reveal the poisoning of rivers with mercury, the gradual loss of the ancestral goldsmithing tradition, and the destruction of tropical forests in one of the planet's biodiversity hotspots.