“REZEKI: Gold and Stone Mining in Aceh” was produced jointly by SEATIDE and the University of Milano-Bicocca. The 52-minute film is based on Giacomo Tabacco’s and Silvia Vignato’s research, respectively, on gold and stone mining and on marriage and labour in West Aceh (Indonesia). It is about seeking fortune and fast money in post-tsunami, post-conflict and resource-rich Aceh. It is a choral description of the relationship between a female-centred, matrifocal agricultural work and landscape (which includes men’s work too) and the obstentatiously male risky work of gold miners, up in the mountains, in the pits compounds where women are banned. It is, therefore, a film about young men desiring success and girls, and young women laughing about them. It is also a vision of landscapes of different resources.

The film does not privilege one character but is rythmated by a woman’s narration. She is a war survivor, a farmer and the mother of two miners. The images of miners descending down the mineshafts are then constantly reinserted in the village everyday life and words. The film is the result of a collaboration of Silvia Vignato  and Giacomo Tabacco with filmmaker Parsifal Reparato and was shot in February 2015.

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