A new gold rush is sweeping through the Amazon rainforest where scores of women and men hunt for nuggets and specks of gold. But this race for gold is bringing on the destruction of one of the last earthly paradises, the world’s largest tropical forest, the lungs of our planet, where everything and anything can be paid in gold.

As a result, a gold ingot cycle has developed—with its batch of insolvents, prostitutes, godfathers, traffickers, whether in French Guiana, Brazil or Suriname. Gold has brought upon disease, mercury, crime, alcoholism. Gold has turned creeks and rivers into dumping grounds.

This cycle is that of the destruction of men by men. Whereas the Amazonian rainforest releases 300 tons of gold each year, it receives 120 tons of mercury. An uneven trade: treasure against poison. And as the backdrop, all sorts of traffics are arising: people, weapons, drugs.

In the depths of this borderless jungle also lies the tragedy of the Wayanas, a Native American tribe from Guiana, who are being poisoned by mercury, the element essential to gold mining. The Wayanas are doomed by a looming disappearance.

The New Eldorado is enduring one of the world’s worst globalization disasters.

BC: Olivier Hello, why did you choose this topic, the world of gold?

After I travelled to the Amazon, I was struck by this peculiar world of gold. The men who live around the gold mines in the forest live in extremely difficult conditions. While very few live by, some become very rich overnight. A war opposes the two-no holds barred. The surrounding brutishness is massive. And yet, they are so well organized! In the depths of the Amazon, the lungs of our planet, the gold mines are surrounded by generators, clandestine villages, small shops-pirogue days away from the first town.

The villages look like good old Wild West towns, with saloons, brothels, pastors, and henchmen. But there's no sheriff around here! And yet all this gold does not really profit Amazonian populations as the yearly 3000 tons of gold goes to European capitals or elsewhere.

Then again, the world is sending in mercury-120 tons per year! This toxic metal is indeed necessary to extract gold, even though it is poisoning the rivers and residents of the forest.
This film therefore strives to show the inequality of this tradeoff: gold against mercury, treasure against poison. And this tragedy goes far beyond the borders of the Amazon!
We further the planet's pollution; we encourage deforestation, which currently stands at a rate of 20,000 km2 per year, the equivalent of 4 million football fields. All that in the name of jewelry and the federal reserves of industrialized countries!
And on top of that, Native Americans are dying out...

Was the film difficult to shoot?

Yes, it was very difficult. The film was shot in Brazil, Suriname, and French Guiana. We've been threatened several times. We've been attacked in the middle of the night as we set up camp. We've been held at gunpoint. A member of our crew actually went back to France in the middle of the shooting. I really believed we were going to live the same hellish conditions as Werner Herzog's film, Aguirre, the Wrath of God...
We also got a broken leg in Brazil; that's when I realized that even our guide was armed. Garimpeiros, gold diggers, and traffickers don't really appreciate those who come snooping around their activities in the forest. The plane of a trafficker which we used recently crashed. The Amazonian forest abounds in clandestine cemeteries. All that for gold.

Is the craze and fascination for gold still going?

Absolutely. It's unbelievable! Just like in Blaise Cendrars or Jack London's books. I must admit that I myself am not indifferent to the shiny metal. It will outlive us, it is here to stay. Put on the table a one-kilo gold ingot, it is so dense and so small. But that one kilo represents our history, that of all men-Babylon, Tutankhamen, Mycenaean masks, the golden calf... The symbolic of gold is very strong.
This metal is warm, hearty, and extremely malleable. With just 3 grams of gold, you can make a thread... a one-kilometer long thread! And yet, gold is also a death tool. For the sake of gold necklaces, watches, electronics, men are being killed and enslaved, workers are being shackled, women are being prostituted.
I've learned one thing from the depths of the forest: gold drives men crazy. A man can kill another man for a nugget at 20 Euros a gram. Man is deforesting the Amazon and thus contributing to the destruction of our planet-in the name of gold. The worst part is that this trend is on the rise due to soaring gold rates. Mines are being displaced and so are clandestine villages. The evangelical church tags along a (...)

Olivier Weber

WRITER, DIRECTOR, NEWS REPORTER
PRESIDENT OF THE JOSEPH KESSEL PRIZE

STUDIES

- Graduate Studies in Business Management and Administration, University of San Francisco, 1983

- Master of Arts in Economics, University of Nice, 1980, 1981

- Master of Arts in Anthropology, EHESS (School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences), Paris, 1981

- National Institute of Oriental Studies (Inalco), Paris (Indonesian-Malaysian)

- PhD in international law, IDPD (Institute of Peace and Development), Nice, 1981-1983

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

- Freelance reporter (Sunday Times, The Guardian, Le Point, Libération), 1985

- Financial reporter, La Correspondance Économique and La Lettre Financière (1985-1986)

- Reporter, Le Point (1986-1990)

- International news reporter, Le Point (since 1990)

- Director (since 1996)

- Vice President of the SCAM (Civil Society of Multimedia authors) from 2001 to 2003

- Administrator of the SCAM, since 2001

- President of the jury for the Joseph Kessel Prize (since February 2002)

- Lecturer at the Political Science School (since 2005)

FILMOGRAPHY

Documentary director and screenwriter for France 5, Arte, France 2, Voyage, Odyssée, TF1, Canal Plus, Télé Québec, Télévision Suisse Romande and TV España (since 1996)

- Guerre et Santé (War and Health) - 52', France 5, 1995
- Le Défi alimentaire (The Food Challenge) - 52', France 5, 1996
- Lucien Bodard, dit Lulu le Chinois (Lucien Bodard, aka Lulu the Chinese) - 52', France 5,
1998, nominated at the International Festival of Audiovisual Programs
- Soudan, Les enfants esclaves (Sudan's Slave Children) - 26', Envoyé Spécial, France 2
1999
- L'Opium des talibans (The Taliban's Opium) - 90', Odyssée, TF 1, 2001
- Sur la Route du Gange (The Ganges Road) - 54', Arte, Soirée théma, 2003
- La traversée de l'Iran (Crossing Iran) - 26', Voyage/TMC, 2004
- Route de la Soie (The Silk Road) - 26', Voyage/TMC, 2004
- Les Lacs sacrés (Sacred Lakes) - 26', Voyage/TMC, 2004
- Herat - 26', Voyage/TMC, 2004
- La Vallée des Bouddhas (The Valley of Buddhas) - 26', Voyage/ TMC, 2004
- Paris-Kaboul - 52', Voyage/ TMC, 2004
- A la Recherche des trésors perdus d'Afghanistan (Afghanistan's Lost Treasures) - 90', Voyage, 2004
- Retour au Cambodge (Back to Cambodia) - 52', France 5/Voyage/France 2, 2005

PRIZES

- Prizewinner of the Journaliste Demain Foundation, 1982-1983

- Lazareff Prize, 1991

- Albert Londres Prize, 1992

- Ouest-France for War Correspondents Prize, 1997

- War Correspondent second prize, 1997

- Joseph Kessel Prize, SCAM Prize, 1997

- L'Aventure Prize, 1997

- Mumm Prize, 1999

- FIPA Prize (International Festival of Audiovisual Program), in the category international reporting and social documentaries for L'Opium des Talibans, 2002

- L'Audiovisuel honor f (...)