Women of the Mine

Filmed against the grey and chalk-white backdrop of Cerro Rico—a cold and forbidding mining community in Potosi, Bolivia—the harsh life of widows and other lone women trying to survive and care for their children is at the center of Women of the Mine. Filmmakers Malena Bystrowicz and Loreley Unamuno begin with a slow and deliberate orientation into a world in which young kids weave their way downhill and through narrow passages between boulders to get to school. Mothers are up before sunrise to take care of housework before spending their days seeking rocks that they can strip-mine for tin. About midway, the narrative expands to tell a history of the miners' labor union and its struggles during Bolivia's hellish years of military authoritarianism. It turns out that some of the women of Cerro Rico were deeply involved in keeping the union strong, and when it was time to lead a protest that helped topple the government, those same women were on the frontlines. Yet, as powerful and moving as that victory was, life isn't easier for the survivors living in perpetual chill and dust. The men still die in mining accidents or from lung disease, and their wives have no choice but to take up shovels and hammers. A tale of personal courage on the part of people who are trapped in a generational cycle of poverty, illness, and death, this is recommended. Aud: C, P. (T. Keogh)