2011-2020Ben RussellDocumentaryFrance

Ben Russell – Good Luck (2017)

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Filmed between a state-owned large-scale underground mine in the war-torn state of Serbia and an illegal mining collective in the tropical heat of Suriname, Good Luck is a visceral non-fiction portrait of hope and sacrifice in a time of global economic turmoil.

SYNOPSIS
Shot on Super16mm, Good Luck is a portrait of two mining communities operating on opposite sides of a hostile world: the state employees of a 600m-deep underground Serbian copper mine and the Maroon laborers of an illegal gold mining operation in the jungle tropics of Suriname.



Director’s note :
Beginning with a 600-meter descent into the depths of the earth, Good Luck shines a flashlight onto the human face of labor in the time-warp’d working conditions of an underground state-owned mine in Serbia. The hiss of oxygen cuts through the diesel rumble, the walls of the office vibrate with explosions two levels below; war-torn and half-forgotten, these miners’ physical struggle finds its mirror a continent away – in the tropical heat of an illegal Surinamese gold mine.



The water pumps roar under the blinding sun; silver liquid rolls across the hand of a Saramaccan Maroon as he adds mercury to dirt in a never-ending search for gold. Formed between dark and light, cold and heat, North and South, Good Luck immerses its viewer in the precarious natural and social environments of two distinct labor groups so as to better understand the bonds that men share. Here is the human foundation of capital, revealed.



From the outset, it felt too easy to critique a process that all of us are directly implicated in, to have a public opinion about the horrors and environmental destruction that are part and parcel of the mining process – be it legal or illegal. It ultimately wasn’t the process that interested me as much as the side effects of the process: the community that arises out of harsh conditions, the collective that manifests out of necessity. I spent months in these mines simply because I wanted to better understand how men persevere.

Ben Russell



Awards
Best Experimental Film @National Society of Film Critics Awards 2017
Wavelengths Program @TorontoIFF 2017
International Competition @Locarno 2017

http://nitroflare.com/view/F18BEF5DAF78BC9/Good_Luck%2C_2017.mkv

Language(s):Saramaccan, Serbian
Subtitles:French (Hardcoded)

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