When colonial governments discovered gold in South Africa, they coerced hundreds of thousands of Indigenous men to meet their demands for cheap mining labour. Part of a plot to remove Indigenous peoples from their lands, miners were promised a means to provide for their families but instead were met with working conditions that would spark one of the world's largest epidemics of silicosis and tuberculosis. Devastating stories from miners and their families are interspersed against a shockingly vivid archive that exposes over 120 years of this conspiracy. And reaching well into the present, we see how these same Indigenous communities are now reliant on mining incomes for survival. In the wake of a historic 5-billion-rand settlement in South Africa's largest class action lawsuit against mining companies, Dying for Gold invites us to witness the human cost of extractive industries and the murderous legacy of colonization.
| Directed by | Catherine Meyburgh, Richard Pakleppa |
