'Dying for Gold' doccie to headline at Joburg Film Festival

"The true cost of gold mining in South Africa cannot be accurately measured without taking into account the world's greatest TB and silicosis epidemic," says Catherine Meyburgh, co-director of the Dying for Gold documentary. 

A production by Breathe Films, Dying for Gold, tells the story of more than 500,000 families who welcomed their loved ones back from the mines in a much worse state than they were when they first started mining for gold.

Sick miners returned home in poverty, suffering from tuberculosis and silicosis -  conditions they picked up from countless digs beneath the surface.

Dying for Gold takes the audience inside "South Africa's biggest class action in which gold miners charged their former employers with causing illness and death in the pursuit of profits."

In an out-of-court settlement in May, mining companies agreed to pay R5-billion as compensation to affected miners and families. According to Meyburgh, those payments are yet to be made.

Meyburgh told TimesLIVE that the personal stories of those affected was a story that had to be told.

"I was inspired years ago when I first found out that around 800 to 900 miners are killed in underground accidents each year, and nobody was publicising this. Not only that, but miners are still getting paid very little for the kind of work they do in comparison to the millions raked in by mining companies."

And so began the three-year project which saw directors Meyburgh and Richard Pakleppa sift through archives and legal documents to bring the story to life. A task Meyburgh says would have been impossible without the help of honours students for the University of Johannesburg.

The documentary has been adapted into various languages including isiXhosa and siSwati and will also be screened in Mozambique and Botswana.

"There are plans to take the film abroad because the story of the true cost of mining is a universal story that many other countries can relate to and are familiar with." 

Dying for Gold will headline at the Johannesburg Film Festival on the evening of November 15 and will be followed by an interactive panel discussion two days later.