Film Screening "Cerro Rico, Tierra Rica" with film director Juan Vallejero from Bolivia

The Working Group on the Environment in Latin America (WGELA) is hosting a screening of ¿Cerro Rico, Tierra Rica¿, on Thursday, March 21st in Love Auditorium. Refreshments will be served starting at 5:30pm and the screening with start at 6:00pm. Joining us will be Juan Vallejero, director of the piece, who has agreed to participate in a discussion and Q&A after the screening. This event is free and open to the public.Film synopsis:Cerro Rico, Tierra Rica is a detailed observational mosaic about two distinct mining communities in southwestern Bolivia ¿ an elegy to the landscape of the altiplano (the high plateaus of the Andes mountains) and a valuable ethnographic record of manual labor in the region.During the 16th and 17th centuries, Cerro Rico (Rich Hill), an enormous conical mountain that towers over the city of Potosi, provided half of the world's silver and sustained the economy of the Spanish Empire during colonial times. Most of the mineral wealth of Cerro Rico has been depleted, but today more than ten thousand miners still work on the slopes and tunnels of the mountain looking for zinc, tin, lead, or a good vein of silver.