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Genova   28/10/2004 - 8/11/2004

Galata Museo del Mare, Auditorium - Calata De Mari, 1 - Genova
Museo di Storia Naturale G. Doria - via Brigata Liguria, 9 - Genova
Centre Culturel Galliera - via Garibaldi, 20 - Genova
Multisala Corallo - via Innocenzo IV, 13r - Genova

Spotlight on gold



  1. Original Title: Pleins feux sur l'or
  2. Director: François de Closets, Roland Portiche
  3. Photography: Christophe Maizou, François Rochelle, Stéphane de Saint-Laumer
  4. Sound: Vincent Magnier
  5. Production: Nicolas Goldzahl, VM group per France2
  6. France
  7. 52 min.
  8. 2002

This documentary was shot primarily in French Guyana, the site of a modern-day gold rush. Prospectors sift the riverbeds with rudimentary equipment and dig tunnels to great depths to wrest the gold from the water and the rocks. And they find quite sizeable nuggets. Alloyed over the fire with silver, the metal takes on the familiar colour and gleam of the most noble of all metals, shelter good par excellence. This film also revisits historic gold rushes such as California in the mid 19th century, and takes us into stores which still accept nuggets as legal tender and also to visit great vaults filled with resplendent ingots. It illustrates the process of minting gold coins and concludes with a brief animated illustration of the chemical properties of gold and why it does not bond with the other elements in the Periodic Table.

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