Garimpeiros

Nzofu, a small village on the border between Congo and Angola is part of a diamond smuggling route between the two countries. Ever since the mid-1980s, a steady flow of Congolese youngsters has ventured into Angola in search of diamonds. They work as artisanal miners (garimpeiros), or barter goods such as soap bars, cloth, beer, whisky or tins of sardines for that precious commodity: diamonds. They invariably end up in a harsh and violent environment, marked by thirty years of civil war. Formerly under the rule of UNITA rebels, the Angolan diamond fields are now controlled by the Angolan army and international mining corporations. The latter have also started to prospect for diamonds on the Congolese side of the border.

This documentary film follows two tracks: On the one hand it relates the experience of young Congolese diamond diggers (called Bana Lunda) in Angola, revealing how Congolese youngsters are exploited in a global diamond trade, but also how they pursue their own economic and political agendas and see themselves as active participants in rather than victims of this trade.

Simultaneously, the film explores the impact of diamond mining and smuggling on the daily life of the villagers of Nzofu, caught between their own traditions and a changing world. ‘Garimpeiros’ follows the confrontation between the villagers of Nzofu and four Indian geologists who have been dropped by helicopter in their midst to prospect the area for diamonds.