Deep Cobalt

From Viennale

What images and sounds serve to depict the tunnels from which the materials of our age are wrested? NDJIMU is a sensorial experience, a descent into a pitch-black mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo where the cobalt that fuels connectivity is extracted. The first-person camera immerses us in a reality seldom confronted, as metallic echoes and dancing glimmers draw us into a world of limited visibility. In images that flirt with abstraction, the film sheds paradoxical light on the precarious labour and the local consequences of an insatiable global economy. (Gonzalo de Pedro Amatria)