Mirage of El Dorado

Mirages d'un Eldorado

Also known as El Dorado, la sed de oro

Mirage of El Dorado leads us into the mountains of northern Chile, where the devastating operations of Canadian mining companies threaten a fragile ecosystem in one of the driest parts of the globe. This « political cowboy flick» follows the pitched battle between a farming community in the Huasco valley and Canada’s mining giant Barrick Gold with its sidekick Noranda (now part of the Suisse corporation Xstrata). It’s a battle fought high in the Andes cordillera where farmers and local representatives fear the ravages of open pit mining operations in a place where a fragile system of glaciers feeds the rivers that flow into the farmlands built out of the advancing Atacama desert.