Presented in world premiere at the International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights (FIFDH) in Geneva in the Focus competition, dedicated to films that bear witness to violences against human rights through the incisive and courageous gaze of militant directors or journalists, Scars of Growth, by director and editor Monika Grassl and director, documentarian and photographer Linda Osusky, touches deeply. Their film gives a voice to those who, despite political decisions that are destroying them, cannot express their dissent. It shows us how power, the one that hides behind the reassuring walls of decision-making places directed by a few, has repercussions of global proportions.

The topic addressed by the two directors is that of mines, or rather that of the construction of new mines in the name of the green transition. What hides behind the seemingly reassuring name of “green transition”, however? What economic interests are hiding behind decisions taken in the name of nature’s defence? While in Europe new mines are getting built and mining companies do nothing but claim their pro-environment positions, Monika Grassl and Linda Osusky give body and voice to those really fighting to survive: a Spanish farmer, Hector, a Swedish reindeer herder, Matti and Karin, who talks about how her grandparents’ land, which belonged to the Sami indigenous population, was expropriated. They are all determined to fight against these projects that threaten their lifestyle, against ruthless decisions that, to justify themselves, hide behind what Karin defines perfectly with the term “green packaging”.

Struggling to preserve their way of life, their identity and their territory, these characters in the shadows tell us about their daily lives, the small and big fights to salvage their dignity. In that sense, the images of the majestic landscapes surrounding Kiruna are magnificent, small villages populated by reindeer who seem to have lost their way home, as if man had deprived them of their natural habitat. The filmmakers contrast these tireless fighters struggling to defend their land with the immense, compact mass of politicians and industrialists discussing the future of these same lands without a care for the populations that depend on them. The Green Deal, the new European growth strategy, is Brussels’ recipe to save the planet from climate collapse, but is everything as simple as it seems? Is it really possible, thanks to electric cars and renewable energy, to promote economic growth while protecting the planet at the same time?

In order to reduce their dependence on China for many critical metals, politicians are in favour of reopening “green” mines in Europa. Yet therein lies the problem, in the construction of monsters that shred the earth and on which many people are sacrificed in the name of energy transition. The directors bravely collect the testimonies of people forgotten in a ruthless equation that has made profit its credo. Accompanying the word of the indigenous populations is Diego, from an environmental NGO, who travels across Europe to see if mining can really be sustainable.

Scars of Growth is a powerful film as much for its content as cinematically, a touching testimony of a world that is dangerously about to vanish, of people fighting for their right to exist in a society that wants to silence them. Their struggles are real, maybe desperate, but always terribly moving and just.

Scars of Growth was produced by Dor Film and Dor Film West.