Southern Nigeria, 1976: A French mining corporation purchases the right to extract Uranium from the city of Arlit. They continue to do so today, and the people of Arlit continue to pay the price.
Radioactivity is invisible but its presence looms over the community like a funeral pall. Throughout the year, heavy winds blow and cover it in radioactive substances. People take shelter and wait for the storm to pass. Water is not only scarce and along with the soil and air, contains alarming levels of radiotoxins. There’s not much fauna and flora to speak of either. Local herdsmen left years ago.
Director and Narrator, Amina Weira returns to Arlit to interview her father, a retired uranium miner who spent 35 years in the quarries. As the film’s main character, he explains what has been done to his home and his people, who instead of benefiting from the promises of the West are now plagued by illness and poverty.
He lives his life surrounded by reminders of his trade: cast-offs from the mines, bits of metal that can be restored and sold on as cooking or building materials. That these objects have radioactive levels 25 times the maximum standards is overlooked ~ as is the future of Arlit itself.
Medias
