Moving Mountains.

2023

By: Ase Lie Brunborg and Nanna Elvin Hansen

Presented at: CPH:DOX 2023, Velferden Sokndals Scene for Samtidskunst

Cast:

Kari Berge

Nanna Elvin Hansen

Rune Haaland

Arild Aamodt

Hansen and Lie interacted with the landscape over several months and talked with many locals closely linked to the industry and the geography. Included in the film are: a local activist that has actioned against Titania's waste-dumping in the ocean; Titania's retired former geo-engineer who worked with mapping mineral deposits, planning extractions, quarry layouts and worked in the separation facility; and a local mountain guide who knows the landscape and its history like the back of his hand. 

Moving Mountains follows traces in the landscape of past and present mining. While following the interventions in the landscape, the film asks how humans could act as caring, supporting characters in a story where the landscape is the protagonist.

In the mountains and valleys of Sokndal, a municipality in the southwest of Norway, the American-owned mining company Titania extracts the mineral ilmenite, used to create titanium white pigment. Mining is not new in this district and started in the 1800s, turning Sokndal into the most mined area of Norway. Most of the region's inhabitants have worked and work in the mining industry. 

Titania A/S is a quarry based on an open pit at Tellnes in Sokndal, close to Jøssingfjord in Rogaland. This is the world's largest ilmenite deposit, with reserves of 400 million tonnes, and Titania accounts for ten percent of the world's ilmenite production.

The black rock ilmenite-noritt, taken from Titania's open pit mine, is turned into titanium white pigment through a chemical process and branded as a product with "maximum whiteness". The product is in everything from paint, paper, toothpaste, food, medicine and more.