Trailer for the documentary All That Glitters.
For more than ten years Nurbek has been working in the Kumtor gold mine, the largest in Kyrgyzstan, one of the countries of the ex-Soviet Union, now an independent republic. The mine belongs to a large Canadian company and in 1998 it was at the centre of a serious environmental disaster, the spillage of nearly two tonnes of sodium cyanide in the river running through the village. While following the protagonist in his everyday life, we discover the reality of Kyrgyzstan, a country that lies at the centre of global interests, divided between a past that will not return - traces of which are still evident - and a present where an uncertain democracy is asserting itself and capitalism is primitive. But what are - if there are any - the differences between the past and present?
The director Tomáš Kudrna goes on a journey to the heart of a country rife with contradictions, and fascinating for this reason; a documentary investigation sui generis, the director reconstructs pieces of history directly in the field, with an ironic and at the same time emphatic outlook and a light, often amused tone.