This film was made in Pacto, close to Ecuador’s capital Quito. The State granted mining concessions for gold, silver, and copper in a region designated by UNESCO as the world’s seventh biosphere reserve. In this biodiversity hotspot are some 270 species of mammals, 210 reptiles, 200 bird species and 130 amphibians, many endangered. The film gathers voices of communities resisting the new round of extraction that would destroy their environment and livelihood of this region. The “Quito sin mineria” campaign opposes mining projects and demands that the people of northwestern Quito be allowed to decide for themselves through public consultation whether or not they agree to mining in the region. The campaigners invoke ancestral sites of the Yumbo, KituKara and Inca peoples in their fight against the mining operations that destroy their land and water. Culture and nature come together to preserve forests endangered by mining. These endangered forests remove at least 266,000 tons of carbon from the atmosphere every year and therefore significantly reduce global warming.

A hill in Kyrgyzstan inhabited by men, women, some children. Smoke, birds, a waste dump like a Leviathan. Among them, a traumatized former soldier, a grieving mother, young people deprived of a future, living and facing their destiny.