FULL SYNOPSIS
Localized violence is linked to global economics in filmmaker Malcolm Rogge's eye-opening look at the chaos that consumed an environmentally threatened region of Ecuador when foreign companies moved in to mine the region's abundant copper. It all started in the mid-1990s, when a Japanese mining company secured the rights to extract copper from Ecuador's northwestern Intag region. It didn't take long for the locals to catch wind of the deal, and when they did, massive protests were staged. Those protests climaxed in the burning of a mining camp, and the hasty departure of the Japanese company. But while most had hoped that a subsequent ordinance banning mining in the area would keep the wolves at bay, their optimism quickly faded with the announcement in 2002 that the Ministry of Energy and Mines had sold the region's two mining concessions to a Canadian company called Ascendant Copper. As tensions began to flare up once again, outside companies were recruited to intimidate the locals into remaining quiet. But these locals weren't about to lie down in defeat while their region was raped of its precious natural resources, and it wasn't long before the situation erupted into violence. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi