Eldorado XXI opens with a dizzying shot of passing miners on their way to and from work extracting minerals from the mountainside of the Peruvian Andes, 5,500 meters above sea level. The torch-lit 50 minute - shot is accompanied on the soundtrack by excerpts from local radio broadcasts and interviews giving a rare insight into the extreme working conditions of the miners. They go on for thirty days straight without pay and chew large quantities of coca leaves to persevere in the hope of finding gold on the thirty-first day when they are allowed to search on their own behalf. Following the monumental opening sequence are scenes from the everyday life of the inhabitants of the village. We get a peak into their world through everything from social gatherings in homes to brothel visits and masked rituals which gives a complex and disturbing impression of a landscape and society.

Salomé Lamas takes part in a digital conversation with filmmaker Mira Adoumier after the screening on September 6th.

This event is part of the film series Elsewhere, Within Here which looks at the last two decade's explorations and renewals of ethnographic filmmaking. The series includes additional films presented through our streaming platform as well as commissioned film essays. The project is curated by Silja Espolin Johnson and supported by the Norwegian Film Institute.

Salomé Lamas (b. 1987) is a filmmaker from Portugal. Her films challenge the lines between documentary and fiction and has a special interest in the relationship between storytelling, memories and history. Lamas explores the traumatic, repressed, unrepresented, and places or people who have become invisible in history, whether it's relating to colonial violence or landscapes that are exploited for capital gain, describing her method as modified ethnography or parafiction.

Her first feature film No Man’s Land [Terra de Ninguem] (2012) screened at several prestigious festivals such as the Berlin International Film Festival, and her shorts have been exhibited at art and film institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, TATE modern in London and the Biennal of Moving Images in Geneva.