Bolivia’s heart is hidden deep beneath the terrifying Cerro Rico mountain. It is there that Natalia Koniarz transports the audience in her dazzling feature-length debut. The mine’s dark corridors consume the innocent, who sacrifice health and life for the glittering ore. This captivating yet horrifying film about the invisible victims of neo-capitalism is arriving in polish cinemas soon, distributed by the Krakow Film Foundation, and will have its international premiere at Ji.Hlava in Opus Bonum competition.
This harrowing portrait of poverty and exploitation in Potosí has impressed the jury panels at the Krakow Film Festival as well as festival audiences, who presented it with the Audience Award. Silver is a documentary that transports viewers to the heart of Bolivia, into Cerro Rico – a mountain that has been devouring humans for centuries. In this place, where the earth literally trembles from pickaxe strikes, Natalia Koniarz examines the brutal reality of people living and dying in the shadow of the silver mine. Three protagonists – a boy, a woman and an elderly miner – become guides through a world where child labour is the norm, and the boundary between life and death blurs amid dust clouds.
The talented director skilfully combines direct observation with poetic imagery. She recounts a tale of contemporary colonialism and neo-capitalism through experience and attentiveness, all while avoiding a dispassionate, journalistic tone. Global corporations and modern technology, widely enjoyed by the privileged, exist at the expense of those extracting raw materials at the very bottom of the global ladder. The camera peers into the mountain but also into the depths of social inequality – revealing both its origins and contemporary face. Children learn in school about the mountain with pride, only to encounter its true visage – alien, dark, and deadly – mere moments later.
Throughout all this, Silver remains coherent in its form, sparse in words, yet rich in meaning. It lingers with the viewer long after the screening, partly due to the contrast between the drama of underground life and superficial tourist curiosity. The mountain’s deadly face doesn’t deter wealthy tourists from exploring it and sharing reels or social media posts from there – posts that couldn’t exist without the very materials mined within. The director doesn’t put forward any accusations; rather, she reveals the true cost of silver vibrating in our pockets and gleaming on our fingers.
Silver was the most awarded title at the 65th Krakow Film Festival. The film received both the Audience Award and the FIPRESCI Award, while the director collected the Silver Horn and the Maciej Szumowski Award for remarkable social awareness. The film’s cinematographer Stanisław Cuske was also recognised with the award for best cinematography, as was producer Maciej Kubicki.
The film is a Polish-Norwegian-Finnish co-production, created with support from the Polish Film Institute, with Telemark as the leading producer (whose previous works include Jakub Piątek’s Pianoforte and Marta Prus’s Over the Limit).
The film’s exceptional quality has been recognised by both Polish and international critics:
“The documentary Silver is (…) an example of cinema born of extraordinary sensitivity and artistic ambition. Told in a varying rhythm, it is at times nostalgic and languid, then moments later—dynamic and saturated with unease. Shot over several years, Natalia Koniarz’s film is the fruit of remarkably patient observation and evidence of great talent and creative courage.” – Bartosz Staszczyszyn, Culture.pl
“This is an observational documentary that avoids narration and interviews, structured like a mosaic, full of fragments and ‘moments’ pieced together to create a picture of the miners’ lives.” Geoffrey Macnab, Business Doc Europe
“Professedly old motives of mining and its social significance gain a new, contemporary light in an aesthetically striking and deeply humanistic debut documentary, Silver (…). A poignant group picture of the mining community in one of the world’s oldest and still-active silver mines—the Potosi Mines in Bolivia, which have been officially operating since 1545—becomes an animated and thoughtful demonstration of the revolving colonial underbelly of the world economy in its various manifestations throughout the centuries.” Aleksandra Biernacka, Modern Times Review
About the director:
Natalia Koniarz (b. 1996) is a documentary filmmaker. Born in the Beskid Mountains, she has lived and worked in Chile, Bolivia, and France. She currently divides her time between Warsaw and Cairo. She graduated from the Krzysztof Kieślowski Film School, where she now lectures and pursues her doctorate. She debuted with The Dam, which won awards at Fipadoc, Go Short, and New Horizons, among others. The film was screened at over 50 festivals and broadcast on the French platform TENK and TVP. Her next documentary Postcards from the Verge premiered at IDFA and was presented at Makedox, Women Make Waves, and many other international festivals. She is the recipient of the Grand Prix for best pitch at East Doc Platform Forum and a participant in the Ex Oriente programme. She has also developed her projects at DocsBarcelona Public Pitch and Fipadoc Industry.
Silver is distributed by the Krakow Film Foundation, organiser of the Krakow Film Festival and many other initiatives promoting the most interesting Polish and international documentary films.
Krakow Film Festival is on the exclusive list of film events qualifying for the Academy Awards® in short film categories (fiction, animation, documentary) and feature-length documentary, the European Film Awards in the same categories, and serves as a qualifying event for the BAFTA Awards.
The Krakow Film Festival is organised with financial support from the City of Krakow, the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, the Polish Film Institute, and the Creative Europe MEDIA Programme. The Polish Filmmakers Association serves as co-organiser.
The 66th Krakow Film Festival will be held in cinemas from 31 May to 7 June 2027 and online on KFF VOD from 5 June to 19 June 2026.