INTERVIEW WITH NATALIA KONIARZ, DIRECTOR OF “SILVER” [KRAKOW FILM FESTIVAL]
“I heard the anguished cry of a miner as he smashed against the bottom of the cave. I cannot erase the images of children experiencing violence from my memory. I was overwhelmed with paralyzing fear when Stanisław's life was hanging by a thread.”
The award-winning film opens in cinemas on 14th November.
– Kazimierz Karabasz had the Warsaw Tram depot, Krzysztof Kieślowski the hospital on Barska Street, Marcel Łoziński a park bench. Does one need to film documentaries in a Bolivian silver mine?
I wasn't searching for a mine. Pure chance thrust me there, and I witnessed something I couldn't simply abandon. That's all.
What sort of chance puts one in such a place?
In 2020, my partner – and also my cinematographer – Staszek Cuske and I were travelling to Argentina. It was March. The pandemic erupted: borders were closed, flights cancelled, and so did connections to Europe. But how long could it last? A week? Two? Surely no more than a month. It lasted fourteen months. We didn't have enough money for hotels, and there was nowhere to return to. We sought respite from the claustrophobia of the lockdown in the Chilean Andes. We lived out of a tent. We moved along the mountains by bicycle. Without destination, but forward. We had a small camera, recording one another. That's how the forty-minute Postcards from the Verge were made. After several months, we crossed into Bolivia. We were already exhausted, searching for a place to stay. We'd heard tales of “the country's most beautiful treasure” – Potosí.
Did you find this treasure?
Getting to know the city and its inhabitants, I was under the impression that reality had fractured into ill-fitting pieces. The Christian imagination is supplemented by the devil of traditional beliefs. Above the rooftops looms the monumental, legendary mountain Cerro Rico, which hides silver. Challenging it against the skyline is a nineteenth-century statue of liberty, modelled after the American one. Meanwhile, at ground level, teenagers emerge from the mine, exhausted from extremely perilous work. We wanted to better understand this place. We took up residence on the mountain's slopes, amongst the miners, both men and women, and their children.
In Silver, you show their reality up close. But really, why is it a Polish documentary filmmaker who's doing this?
A director from Poland is part of the same world as the Bolivian boy sifting dust through his fingers in the mine in order to survive. Previously his father was doing this, but he died in an accident. The silver they extract is used in photography and electronics. It enables me to pursue my profession. It is the artists' duty to remind people that at the other end of the supply chain there are actual human beings too.
The subjects of your documentary aren't legally employed, surely?
They are. The mine in Cerro Rico has existed since time immemorial. Its origins reach back to the 16th century. Today it comprises over 100 kilometres of corridors drilled into the rock massif, intersecting like a labyrinth and perpetually threatening collapse. It bears no resemblance to modern mining. Along the way, however, UNESCO inscribed the mountain, its interior, and the entire city on the World Heritage list, so open-pit mining is prohibited here. The mine belongs to the state, and the state has let it run wild. No work organisation applies there, yet it “operates” legally. Anyone can claim a tunnel for themselves, provided one is available. It's easily spotted – machinery works outside the occupied ones.
What becomes of the extracted silver?
It goes to corporations in Japan, Mexico, and the United States. The corporations prefer to limit their involvement to purchasing the material. Why should they want to be responsible for miners' safety? Not to mention extracting silver at considerable altitudes. The law forbids it. But the raw material from those reaches of the mountain is the finest.
What does life look like for people making a living from the mine?
Typically, it's brief. The average age for men is forty years. Marked by death from birth – everyone has lost a loved one in the mine.
Do accidents occur that often?
Constantly. Dust and transport trolleys claim the most lives. The tunnels are too narrow for them to pass a person. Filled with metal, they become heavy. Descending the steep inclines, they reach considerable speeds. Walking through the mine, you must listen to the clatter of the rails and judge whether you can reach the next alley before they pass. And that's merely the beginning of the list: further along are explosions, gases, being crushed, cave-ins, falls from height. Death is so commonplace amongst miners that no one dwells upon it. Regardless of whether it's bidding farewell to a husband, cousin, or friend, the period of mourning lasts a month. Not a day more. I didn't encounter a single mother there who hadn't buried a child. The young quickly become orphans. The children from Silver come from different families; none has a father.
Can you sense this perpetual mourning in daily life?
No. I had to ask many people numerous questions to learn the truth. You don't show emotions or discuss them there. People don't meet for dinner to talk through the week's affairs. They don't celebrate joyous moments or mourn tragic ones. They don't dance or court. The suffering is suppressed within. Later it emerges in the body, so people experience every pain physically. They liken loneliness to a worm that devours the tissue from within. Depression causes one to “consume their own soul”. When one of the boys couldn't come to terms with the loss of someone close, he stopped speaking for several months.
A local teacher in Silver appeals for psychological assistance for the area's inhabitants.
He's also since perished in the mine. But he was right. The residents' primary needs include water, food, medical care, and mental health specialists. Because daily life here is filled with violence: psychological, physical, sexual. The justice system doesn't reach there. Fathers and husbands are dead, older brothers vanish for entire nights into the depths. Women stay with younger children – defenceless against criminals who rob and molest them. Yet people endure in this reality. “I'm doing this, so my child won't have to”, they repeat. Generation after generation.
The city is just around the corner. Why don't the youth move there?
Indeed, it's a short walk away. But what awaits them there? Most businesses in the city are connected to mining, unemployment is soaring, homelessness grows. For women, the only work is on the street. There isn't even anywhere to emigrate to. The situation is similar in other cities across the country. The more affluent Chile perceives Bolivians as inferior. The seventeen-year-old in Silver, miraculously, through a cousin, managed to leave the country. He works in a sewing workshop in Brazil and now it's his brother, five years younger, who became the head of the family. Is that the way towards a better life?
Did you attempt to help the people you encountered in Bolivia?
We did help. We sought ways to provide systemic support. We organised activities for the children. We showed them photographs from Poland; told them about places we know. But above all, we listened to their questions, needs, and ideas about reality beyond Potosí. I recall one woman. A single mother, she worked in the most perilous part of the mine – the same one where several women had perished in recent weeks. When she disappeared into the mountain, the child was left without supervision. She confided in me that she dreamt of moving to the city. Her little boy would finally go to school. She'd learn to cook and open a small food store. We discussed her competences and the skills which she needed to improve. Together we planned her first steps in the new reality; we even drafted a budget. We picked a kiosk together; we were to cover her expenses. Suddenly she severed contact with us. I realised it wasn't merely out of fear of the unknown but rather something deeper: that she would fail, wouldn't make it. Perhaps it's better to stay in a perilous but familiar and well-known place. The mine had always existed; it won't vanish. And so won't the work within it.
What did you make of it?
I learned a lesson in empathising with another person. I see my surroundings from the point of view of my world; a place where you can find a safe resolution to most difficult situations. But over there, people are forced to fight for survival every day. You cannot expect them to have the strength to rebuild their reality from scratch.
Didn't you attempt to intervene with state institutions?
We spoke with local authorities, who were naturally aware that two filmmakers from Poland along with a Bolivian sound mixer were moving about the area filming something. But I also conducted an interview with Bolivia's Minister of Mining. Regardless of political level, I heard nothing of consequence from any official. They shifted responsibility, directing us to “appropriate bodies”. I was interested in the story of people, not of bureaucracy.
Silver was created as a Polish-Norwegian-Finnish co-production. Was it easy to convince producers to this making story?
At the end of 2021, we brought 18 hours of material back to Poland. I was aware that my project didn't herald a stable investment. A feature-length documentary debut about silver miners from the mountain in Potosí, with plans for further months of filming on the other side of the globe. And I was insisting that I had to return to Bolivia immediately, even before the decision regarding funding from the Polish Film Institute. My child protagonists were growing, and each day of absence eroded their trust in me. I've no idea what miracle made Maciek Kubicki agree to all of this.
Yet that was merely the beginning of your journey through European pitching forums, festivals, workshops.
Initially I felt thrusted into another reality. At industry events, I heard that the subject wasn't “sexy” enough. They presumably meant insufficiently present in the media, not gripping enough for a broad audience. This can be problematic. It's easier for “sexy” projects to secure funding, gain support, garner visibility. However, I met people who understood that there some stories require time, trust, a different narrative structure. They became important to me and to Silver. Paweł Pawlikowski took us under his wing. I participated in the excellent Ex Oriente “creative lab”. Yael Bitton agreed to edit my film.
Was that a significant collaboration for you?
Yael Bitton has experience constructing narratives devoid of classical “action”. She's an intellectual unashamed of her emotions. She knows how to edit while employing their logic. And naturally, in Silver, I'm not recounting the linear story of one, or even several, protagonists. Rather, it's a painstaking mosaic. Marcin Lenarczyk, the sound designer, and Norway's Yngve Sætre contributed considerably to the film. I paid particular attention to their work. In the mine, it's almost total darkness. You must focus your hearing to the limits of possibility.
What has the film cost you?
I don't yet know. I'm only now beginning to grasp how many extreme situations I experienced. I heard the anguished cry of a miner as he smashed against the bottom of the cave. I cannot erase the images of children experiencing violence from my memory. I was overwhelmed with paralyzing fear when Stanisław's life was hanging by a thread. Words flashed through my mind – the message I would have to send to our loved ones. And then there are the sounds. Some make me me leap to my feet. A couple of days ago, I was sitting in a hotel lobby in Gdynia. Behind me, a barman was pushing a service trolley.
Didn't you allow yourself the right to rest, to process difficult emotions, perhaps to speak with a therapist?
I know I need such time. Since childhood, I was eager to jump into the fire. I've always attempted to understand more about the world and wanted to experience reality on my own. I asked hundreds of questions. Today I need ways not to harm myself in the process. Not to emerge from projects wounded. Sometimes to return to my native Beskidy Mountains. To immerse myself in their tranquillity.
Interview by Krzysztof Kwiatkowski.
About the Director
Natalia Koniarz (b. 1996) is a documentary film director. Born in the Beskid Mountains, she has lived and worked in Chile, Bolivia, and France, and currently divides her time between Warsaw and Cairo. She is a graduate of the Krzysztof Kieślowski Film School, where she now teaches and is completing her PhD. She made her debut with "The Dam", which won awards at Fipadoc, Go Short, and New Horizons. The film was screened at more than 50 festivals and broadcast on the French platform TENK as well as on Polish Television (TVP). Her next documentary, "Postcards from the Verge", premiered at IDFA and was shown at Makedox, Women Make Waves, and numerous other international festivals.
Koniarz is the recipient of the Grand Prix for Best Pitch at the East Doc Platform Forum and a participant of the Ex Oriente programme. She has also developed her projects through DocsBarcelona Public Pitch and the Fipadoc Industry programme.
The distributor of "Silver" is the Krakow Film Foundation, the organiser of the Krakow Film Festival and many other initiatives promoting outstanding Polish and international documentary films.
The film’s distribution is co-financed by the Polish Film Institute.
The interview was published on the website of the Krakow Film Festival.
Press release