The Shadow of Gold

The Shadow of Gold takes a look at how the world’s favourite heavy metal is extracted. The film explores mining companies that dig deep to extract gold and artisanal miners extracting by hand, producing just enough to survive. We meet people in Montana suspicious about a proposed gold mine, indigenous people in British Columbia struggling from a toxic mine spill, a miner in Congo determined to keep her gold from feeding a war, Chinese miners fighting a state-owned mine for compensation and a Peruvian miner who knows that the mercury he uses to process gold is toxic. We then meet engineers, scientists and advocates working to tackle gold’s problems. We see new technology that leaves no cyanide, technology that is replacing mercury with an environmentally friendly process and Fair-Trade jewellers committed to a transparent supply chain. In the end, the film tells the stories of hard-working people facing danger just to go to work every day, hoping for a better life for their families.