”A David and Goliath story” (Translated from Dutch)

“In the 1980s, at the time of Pinochet, the Swedish mining company Boliden has toxic industrial waste shipped to the Chilean city of Arica, where it is meant to be processed. However, that did not happen: the waste was left unprotected on a site near a poor neighborhood for years. The film Toxic Playground showed already in 2009 how this led to serious health problems for local residents, such as cancer and birth defects. Partly because of this film, a Swedish lawyer team decides to sue the company on behalf of a large group of victims. Could Boliden have known that the processing plant would endanger local residents? Ergo: is the company liable?

Arica is partly a David and Goliath story, with a multinational corporation as the culprit. Special is the role of the former Head of the Environment: co-director Lars Edman, born in Chile but raised in Boliden, Sweden, took him to Arica in Toxic Playground to show him the consequences of his decisions. While the man does not assume blame or responsibility, he clearly regrets his choices. But how different is that, if he has to testify in Arica in the trial. Surrounded by an army of lawyers and PR types, humanity has disappeared. Suddenly, the Head of the Environment is again an unapproachable wheel in an amoral machine.

By Wendy Koops, Down to earth magazine

Published at: https://downtoearthmagazine.nl/tips-idfa-2020/