CERRO RICO: THE MOUNTAIN THAT EATS MEN
Charles Vaughan, UK, 2003 BBC TWO Thursday 19 February 12.45am-1.40am
Four hundred years after Bolivia's silver mines financed the Spanish Empire, director Charles Vaughan meets the miners who still risk their lives scraping a living from the mountain's exhausted and toxic seams.
STORYVILLE
What's on this week and features on previous films
Bolivia: Time Line
BBC News presents Bolivia's history from 1538 to the present
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Commissioner's
Comment Nick Fraser
Storyville Series Editor
Cerro Rico is Spanish for "rich mountain" or the "mountain of wealth". In fact it's the site of what was the largest silver mine in the world during the 17th Century. Long ago the silver of Cerro Rico ceased to supply the wealth of the Spanish Empire. But it still yields some sort of living for the thousands of Bolivians who work there.
Charles Vaughan's film is a mixture - a travel movie in the best British style and an investigation into a piece of the world that was globalised, not always with inspiring results, some centuries ago.
