The film takes the Amazon riverbank in the northern region of Brazil as a centreplace of the
story and depicts experiences of illegal gold mining which can be brutal and life threatening
both for humans as well as nature.
People from various regions of Brazil come to Penedo in search of gold and dreams for a
better life. Lost in the deafening noise of machines and miners, one of the poorest
communities of the country keep themselves busy with extracting and processing gold – the
symbol of wealth and prosperity.
Considered as lawbreakers and criminals, these people, have never had an opportunity to do
anything else (to obtain education or think about career) but what they do – inflict damage
on nature for their own survival.
‘“Margins of Gold” is a cinematic kaleidoscope of characters: Junior, Pires, Lucas, Cris and
Raissa and other men and women, gold miners and traders temporarily inhabiting the
Penedo community located next to the Tapajós River. They all usher us into the life of the
community and, aside from the hardships they are facing, we also see them as active and
purposeful human beings who are trying to deal with their destiny and survive.
While their everyday life may have a different pace, life here still goes on like everywhere
else – love, death, conflicts, friendship, departures, jobs lost and found, everything melted
together in one pot. Someone works to pay for the education of their children, someone else
is sending money to his family, others spend everything in Cabares.
Sandro Kakabadze uses his unique and extremely rare access to the place and protagonists.
His distant but very horizontal camera carefully observes the viciously fascinating images of
the environmental destruction as well as the lives of the main actors doomed to be destitute
and thus inescapably disconnected from the nature that they are surrounded with and which
they vandalize.