26/08/2021 - Shot in the most dangerous mine in the Peruvian Andes, the new film by Italian documentary filmmaker Matteo Tortone will have its world premiere in Venice’s International Film Critics’ Week

Italian director Matteo Tortone, who works in the world of creative documentary as author, producer and director of photography, will present his latest film in a world premiere as part of the Venice Film Festival’s International Film Critics' Week. Mother Lode [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Matteo Tortone
film profile] previously won the Eurimages Lab Award at the Agora Work in Progress of TIFF 2019 (read the interview). Cineuropa presents the exclusive trailer of this co-production between France, Italy and Switzerland, by Wendigo Films, Malfé Film and C-Side Productions. International sales are handled by Intramovies.

Mother Lode tells the story of Jorge, a boy who leaves his family and his mototaxi job in the suburbs of Lima to seek his fortune in the highest and most dangerous mine in the Peruvian Andes. Isolated on a glacier, La Rinconada is “the city closest to the sky,” and thousands of seasonal workers go there every year, drawn by the chance to make a fortune and in the hope of a better life.

“The idea for the film was born in a gold mining village, in northern Tanzania,” the director explains. “I was fascinated by the metaphysical aspect of gold, in contrast with the macroeconomic implications of the gold market. La Rinconada seemed to me the perfect setting to tell the story of the contemporary gold rush: a town of gold miners situated 5,300 m. high up in the Andes, the destination of masses of men due to the global economic crisis. I met José Luis Nazario Campos, the protagonist of the film, who was 19 at the time, but worked occasionally in the mines from the age of 13. He made an offhand comment once and told me that the first thing he learned was: gold belongs to the devil. It was immediately clear to me then that he would be the protagonist, and this sentence the goal of our journey.”

Matteo Tortone has won the award for Best Director at the Kazan Film Festival with White Men (2011, co-directed with Alessandro Baltera) and for Best Cinematography in 2014 at the Krakow Film Festival for Rada, by Alessandro Abba Legnazzi. Since 2016, he has worked as producer with Malfé Film. In 2018, he was behind the cinematography for After the Crossing [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Joel Akafou, which premiered in 2020 in Berlinale – Panorama.

Watch our exclusive trailer below:

(Translated from Italian)