IDFA 2020: Toxic Avengers By Nick Cunningham Following on from their Toxic Playground (2009), directors William Johansson Kalén and Lars Edman return to the Chilean town of Arica to continue their investigation into the poisoning of the town people, caused by Swedish waste dumped there in 1984. But this time the town has lawyers fighting its corner. Arica world premieres in IDFA Frontlight. In the Swedish town of Skellefteå resides the Boliden company, one of the biggest mining concerns in the world, we are told. Many of the Swedish townsfolk have much to thank the company for. It brought both wealth and prosperity to the area, guaranteed

"Justice Is Very Complicated’: How the ‘Arica’ Team Fought the Good Fight on Two Continents When Lars Edman and William Johansson Kalén were at film school together they had no idea how long it took to make a movie. “We didn’t have any idea,” laughs Kalén. “I remember watching a film that took three years to make, and I was thinking, ‘Oh, shit. Three years? That’s a hell of a long time. Couldn’t they have finished it a bit quicker?’” Now, as the duo make their IDFA debut with the world premiere of their second feature-length doc “Arica” in Frontlight, they

Milka in front of her daughter’s grave. "Farming, hospitals and households all create toxic waste, not to mention industry in general. But how can we safely dispose of this pollution and prevent it from ending up in the ground, water supply – or even the air we breathe?. In 1984 Swedish mining conglomerate Boliden started shipping their toxic detritus to Chile. The mammoth smelting factory of Skelleftea created arsenic, lead and mercury and all this was dumped in the northern town of Arica. Thousands of local people, particularly children, went on to suffer cancer, birth defects and neurological complaints unaware of the

"How did a Swedish mining giant destroy thousands of lives in a Chilean desert town? The answer is in Lars Edman and William Johansson Kalén's new documentary. Jocelyn and Lars William, named after the filmmakers Viewers might be shocked, angry or both after watching Lars Edman and William Johansson Kalén's powerful documentary Arica, which had its world premiere in the Frontlight section of this year's International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA). Before working on Arica, the directing duo met in a film school in Chile and already tackled the same scandal ten years ago, with their directorial debut Toxic Playground. The film,