Marmato

The small town of Marmato perches precariously on the slope of a mountain in Columbia riddled with primitive gold mines. For 500 years, the community has sustained its economy by drilling and dynamiting the mountain’s rich veins, barely denting the estimated $20 billion of reserves. Over the past several years, a Canadian corporation has bought out nearly all of the local mining interests and promoted a plan to level the mountain — and town of Marmato — with an enormous open-pit mine. Filming with unusual care and access over six years, 2012 Mountainfilm Commitment Grant recipient Mark Grieco delivers a powerful elegy for a traditional community besieged by forces that spin inexorably beyond its control.