Intriguing documentary about the impact of an environmental disaster

 “Everything's right, with a great dramaturgic, philosophical and almost scientific precision”   (Theaterkrant)

Mining Stories is a theatrical documentary about a recent environmental disaster in the Brazilian state Minas Gerais, the region where theatre maker Silke Huysmans herself grew up. End 2015 several villages were mercilessly swept off the map by a poisonous mudflow caused by the breach of a dam.

The dam was the property of the mining company Samarco, an important employer in the region so the problems were many. Very fast it appears that each form of personal distress can hardly compete with the reigning economic narrative.

Mining Stories is neither a reconstruction of the facts nor a whodunit but an intriguing journey along personal stories and social questions linked with the disaster. Essayistic and careful but at the same time heartfelt and inevitable.

Huysmans and her partner Hannes Dereere talked to the local population, involved politicians and scientists but also to some Belgian thinkers, such as neurologist Luc Crevits, professor of literature Stef Craps and economist Paul De Grauwe. All these conversations finally result in a multi-layered sample concert that goes into the nature of memories, pressing themes such as politics and religion and the way we tell stories.

Moreover, Mining Stories  is the first 'theatre performance' of Huysmans and Dereere, who don't yet know very well whether they are 'artists' or 'activists'. Their previous projects were always in situ performances but they also dealt with the capricious nature of memories and stories.