ABOUT JOZI GOLD
The mines of Johannesburg, or Jozi, have produced a third of all the gold mined in human history. Now the mines are falling apart and the city confronts an environmental nightmare: Tons of radioactive waste polluting the air and turning water into poisonous Acid Mine Drainage. Former Jehovah’s Witness Mariette is on a mission to uncover the truth about Jozi’s mine waste and force the gold industry to take responsibility.
The film had its World Premiere at the Encounters South African International Documentary Film Festival in June 2019.
The International Premiere will take place at CPH:DOX 2020.
Do you want to organize your own screening of Jozi Gold? For screening requests in South Africa, please contact anita@uhuruproductions.co.za
For screening requests elsewhere, please contact film@wgfilm.com.
DIRECTOR’S NOTES
Sylvia Vollenhoven:
Jozi Gold is a South African story with global implications. The team is made up of an impressive array of professionals who have an extensive history of collaboration. Fredrik Gertten and I have known each other and worked together for more than 30 years. My passion for this story is further fuelled by my admiration for Mariette, a white, middle-class Afrikaner woman who has no formal training in any of the issues she tackles so dexterously. Telling Mariette’s story will inspire people everywhere into understanding that one ordinary person can make an extraordinary difference.
Fredrik Gertten:
I worked as a journalist in South Africa in the 1980s until the day Mandela was inaugurated as President 1994. The mine dumps, the anti-Apartheid struggle and the friends I made there are a part of my history, so when South African filmmaker Adam Welz came to me with this troubling and inspirational story I wanted to help out first as a producer, now as a co-director. Our main character, Mariette Liefferink, has no formal education and she was a Jehova’s Witness for 25 years; if she can take on huge and powerful corporations we all can, there’s no excuse! She is maybe the coolest and most colourful documentary character I have ever met. This will be a fun and disturbing film.
BACKGROUND
In 1886 the world’s largest gold deposits were discovered in a rural part of South Africa. A boomtown was born: Johannesburg, Africa’s richest city.
Gold production peaked in 1970 and declined rapidly in the late 1980s when the best ore was mined out. The Apartheid regime collapsed in the early 1990s along with gold output. The mines have left six billion tons of solid waste in surface dumps… 600,000 tons are radioactive. Uranium is naturally found in the same rock as gold. Tens of millions of litres of Acid Mine Drainage, a toxic soup that forms when water comes into contact with mined rock, flow out of disused mine tunnels every day.
Almost no research has been done and for decades anyone who dared to look into it was defunded or intimidated. A recent study estimated that up to 1,6-million people may be living dangerously close to mine waste dumps. Mines and the government fear that clean-up and healthcare costs of mine pollution might equal 60 years’ of gold industry profits. Because there is a great and general reluctance to address the problem, the work of Mariette Liefferink has taken centre stage.
PRESS KIT
PRODUCTION INFO
Title: Jozi Gold
Genre: Documentary
Release year: 2019
Length: 74 min
CREDITS
Directors: Sylvia Vollenhoven, Fredrik Gertten
Based on an Original Idea by: Adam Welz
Producer: Margarete Jangård (WG Film)
Co-Producers: Anita R Larsen (Sant & Usant), Sylvia Vollenhoven (Vision In Africa)
Executive Producer: Fredrik Gertten
Editor: Stefan Sundlöf
Cinematography: Maanda Nwendamutswu
Composer: Gustav Wall
Sound Design: Martin Hennel
Colorist: Tom Chr. Lilletvedt
In Co-Production With: SVT – Axel Arnö, Film i Skåne - Lisa Nyed, EODOCS – Margje de Koning, Yle – Erkko Lyytinen, DR – Anders Bruus
With Support From: Swedish Film Institute - Klara Grunning, Nordisk Film & TV Fond - Karolina Lidin, Norwegian Film Institute - Lars Løge, Fritt Ord Foundation, National Film & Video Foundation, Creative Europe - MEDIA Programme of the European Union, City of Malmö
Outreach Campaign Financing: Postkodslotteriet
FESTIVALS
In selection: Encounters South African International Documentary Festival 2019, CPH:DOX 2020, Dokufest Prizren 2020, Rotterdam Architecture Film Festival 2020, Imagine Science Film Festival NYC 2020, Watch Docs 2020
