As a part of our advanced course on the anthropological study of resources in the North we screen a rare film tomorrow

Thursday, 18 April at 16:30 in the Arctic Centre in Rovaniemi, in the POLARIUM room.

Kultajoki – Gold River is a careful portrait of several individual characters who found their dedication in small scale private gold washing in Finnish Lapland. Most of the mining publicity is usually about big projects, multinational companies and enourmous social and environmental impacts. But in fact worldwide there is also a lot of small scale resource development. I remember that from earlier anthropological talks about gold diggers in West Africa , and of course Julie Cruikshank’s formidable work on the Klondike Gold Rush narratives, which is chapter four in “The Social Life of Stories” .

The film Kultajoki has not unlike Julie’s work a life history approach for exploring the relations of particular people to gold and the river, as resources in northern Finland. We find out how the relation between people and their environment among small scale gold washers is so intimate that the resource and its occurance in nature determines not only a particular way of life and engaging with the environment, but also shapes these people’s personalities profoundly. The film was shot during long term field trips with the main

characters on a zero-budget basis, and therefore does not have to conform to the usual commercial cinema or TV adventure requirements that media companies nowadays have. Everybody is welcome to joint if you happen to be in or want to come to Rovaniemi at that time. Bernd Bartusevics, the director of the film, will be present himself and be happy to answer your questions as well.