Eldorado, The Struggle for Skouries

ELDORADO - The Struggle for Skouries is an urgent documentary chronicling the struggle against environmental destruction through high-risk gold mining at Europe's largest mining project located in Northern Greece. Chronicling the resistance against high-risk gold extraction and the criminalization of the anti-mining movement by the Greek government, it is an urgent document of neoliberal ideals and human rights abuses playing out in one of the most crisis-ridden countries of Europe. Although its mining plans for Northern Greece are irreversibly catastrophic for the environment, the company is backed by the Greek Government and central European Union policies and fueled by the complex economic politics of the current economic crisis in the name of “needed investments”.Local opposition to extreme mineral extraction became a broad-based movement driven by a desire for a deeper form of democracy, which received solidarity from all over Greece and across Europe. The Greek government reacted by sending anti-terrorist squads into a resistant village and brought up charges against more than 450 people, many of whom are accused for allegedly forming a criminal organization and are facing severe prison sentences. Meanwhile, Canadian low-cost mining company Eldorado Gold uses elaborate tax evasion schemes to avoid paying income tax channeling profits via Dutch mailbox companies. With a unique access to long-term residents and extensive archive material, the film tells the stories of activists criminalized for their opposition to the mining project and documents the high price of gold for the environment and human rights in Greece.

Directed By: Leopold Helbich & Wasil Schauseil

Produced By: Leopold Helbich & Wasil Schauseil. Co-producer: DotMov

Trailer: vimeo.com/242324186