Cursed-For-Gold

BC: Olivier Hello, why did you choose this topic, the world of gold?

After I travelled to the Amazon, I was struck by this peculiar world of gold. The men who live around the gold mines in the forest live in extremely difficult conditions. While very few live by, some become very rich overnight. A war opposes the two-no holds barred. The surrounding brutishness is massive. And yet, they are so well organized! In the depths of the Amazon, the lungs of our planet, the gold mines are surrounded by generators, clandestine villages, small shops-pirogue days away from the first town.

The villages look like good old Wild West towns, with saloons, brothels, pastors, and henchmen. But there's no sheriff around here! And yet all this gold does not really profit Amazonian populations as the yearly 3000 tons of gold goes to European capitals or elsewhere.

Then again, the world is sending in mercury-120 tons per year! This toxic metal is indeed necessary to extract gold, even though it is poisoning the rivers and residents of the forest.
This film therefore strives to show the inequality of this tradeoff: gold against mercury, treasure against poison. And this tragedy goes far beyond the borders of the Amazon!
We further the planet's pollution; we encourage deforestation, which currently stands at a rate of 20,000 km2 per year, the equivalent of 4 million football fields. All that in the name of jewelry and the federal reserves of industrialized countries!
And on top of that, Native Americans are dying out...

Was the film difficult to shoot?

Yes, it was very difficult. The film was shot in Brazil, Suriname, and French Guiana. We've been threatened several times. We've been attacked in the middle of the night as we set up camp. We've been held at gunpoint. A member of our crew actually went back to France in the middle of the shooting. I really believed we were going to live the same hellish conditions as Werner Herzog's film, Aguirre, the Wrath of God...
We also got a broken leg in Brazil; that's when I realized that even our guide was armed. Garimpeiros, gold diggers, and traffickers don't really appreciate those who come snooping around their activities in the forest. The plane of a trafficker which we used recently crashed. The Amazonian forest abounds in clandestine cemeteries. All that for gold.

Is the craze and fascination for gold still going?

Absolutely. It's unbelievable! Just like in Blaise Cendrars or Jack London's books. I must admit that I myself am not indifferent to the shiny metal. It will outlive us, it is here to stay. Put on the table a one-kilo gold ingot, it is so dense and so small. But that one kilo represents our history, that of all men-Babylon, Tutankhamen, Mycenaean masks, the golden calf... The symbolic of gold is very strong.
This metal is warm, hearty, and extremely malleable. With just 3 grams of gold, you can make a thread... a one-kilometer long thread! And yet, gold is also a death tool. For the sake of gold necklaces, watches, electronics, men are being killed and enslaved, workers are being shackled, women are being prostituted.
I've learned one thing from the depths of the forest: gold drives men crazy. A man can kill another man for a nugget at 20 Euros a gram. Man is deforesting the Amazon and thus contributing to the destruction of our planet-in the name of gold. The worst part is that this trend is on the rise due to soaring gold rates. Mines are being displaced and so are clandestine villages. The evangelical church tags along and partakes in this diabolical cycle by legitimizing explorations.

You're an international reporter and a writer. Although you've already directed several documentaries, was it difficult to move on to full-length feature film?

This project meant a lot to me. It had been on my mind for over eight years. It took us, with Sylvain Bursztejn our producer, two years to complete. He really helped in implementing the idea and editing the footage with Florence Bresson, along with the whole crew. So, even though shooting conditions were very difficult, you get to meet incredible people in the Amazonian jungle. It is both beautiful and sad; beautiful in terms of adventure, in terms of the ambitions of these poor people who want to improve their fate. But it is also very sad, sad to the point of tears, as these people are the links of a chain they cannot break; they are often indebted to their boss; some girls never come back out of the forest-prostituted, chained, or ill. Man is being annihilated under these large trees. And that is a tragedy resulting from globalization. A paradise is being crossed off the map for a world of gold. So, yes, it really is an unequal trade...

Olivier Weber welcome to Cannes and good luck with the screenings. Sincere congratulations and keep it green we love it!

Bruno Chatelin (filmfestivals.com editor) talks with Olivier Weber Cursed for Gold Director
Do not miss the Cannes screening May 16th at 10pm Palais K