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In a world in which the supply routes for coal, ore, lithium and copper have long spanned all continents, it would not be enough to limit the past and present of mining to German perspectives. That is why, following the retrospective "Glück auf! Mining in German Film", presented in 2023, the program "Schlagende Wetter" is dedicated to different approaches to mining in international cinema.

Films from different cultures will be shown that focus on socio-political flashpoints and take us to mines in China, Yugoslavia, Great Britain, Belgium, the USA and Bolivia, for example. Across different political systems, whether socialism, capitalism or colonialist structures that still persist today, the films reveal more similarities than differences. They show mining as an extreme form of exploitation that cost the lives of thousand and thousand of people and find living monuments of human resilience in the workers. Their protagonists are those who otherwise have no voice: drunken unemployed people in Walang alaala ang mag paru-paro (Butterflies Have No Memories) by Lav Diaz, alienated "guest workers" in Déjà s'envole la fleur maigre by Paul Meyer, politically instrumentalized worker heroes in Slike iz života udarnika (Life of a Shock Force Worker) by Bahrudin Čengić and resisting miners' wives in Salt of the Earth by Herbert J. Biberman.

The destruction of landscapes becomes tangible in long shots, while close-ups show the scars on the bodies and in the souls of the workers. These are dark films that try to make the darkness of the tunnels and the blackness of the smog tangible. What does it mean to work underground? How do people defend themselves against oppression? At the same time, it shows how communal cultural practices are formed out of mining work and what it means when these are taken away from people. Instead of following the political arguments that often weigh people and nature against each other when it comes to the energy transition, films such as Behemoth by Zhao Liang or Vörös föld (Red Earth) by László Vitézy show that one cannot be separated from the other. 

Solidarity through showing, telling, documenting and listening is the great power of cinema. What remains for the filmmakers is tenderness where otherwise harshness reigns. The images of worn-out faces in How Green Was My Valley by John Ford or the visible fear of the miners before their first trip into the depths in La ragazza in vetrina by Luciano Emmer or Barbara Kopple's camera fearlessly throwing itself into the turmoil of a strike in Harlan County, USA. are just a few examples of this humanistic urgency in the face of screaming injustice. Which Side Are You On? is the title of one of the most famous protest songs of miners and the films show that partisanship is not always a question of lack of balance, sometimes it is a human duty. (Patrick Holzapfel)


The series curated by Patrick Holzapfel is funded by the Hauptstadtkulturfonds.

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