In 1999, the residents of Tambogrande, a small town in northern Peru, learned that the Fujimori government had secretly granted mining concessions on their land to the multi-national corporation, Manhattan Minerals. The company's plans for an open-pit gold mine would involve relocation of half of the town's residents, and contaminate the soil and ground water in this agricultural region famous for its fruit orchards.

Aware of the environmental and health consequences of a gold mining operation in another Peruvian town, Choropampa, the residents of Tambogrande organized The Defense Front to protect their town. In TAMBOGRANDE, the producers of CHOROPAMPA: The Price of Gold (also distributed by First Run/Icarus Films) follow the Tambogrande residents' five-year-long struggle to thwart the Peruvian government's connivance with corporate plans that would despoil their land and destroy their livelihoods.

The film traces the history of the region, including the pioneering efforts of mango farmer Godofredo Garcia Baca, the leader of the protest movement who, beginning in the mid-Sixties, had helped transform Peru's northern desert into an important agricultural region.

TAMBOGRANDE also chronicles the changing nature of the protest movement, from its early, often violent protests and confrontations with police and the assassination of Godofredo, to the rechanneling of their efforts into peaceful protest and political action, using popular culture and technology - everything from dance and music to the Internet - to publicize their cause and to force the government to allow a referendum on the issue.

In telling this story of the starkly dramatic showdown between popular will and corporate interests, TAMBOGRANDE uses scenes of mass demonstrations, interviews and commentary from participants on both sides of the conflict, statements by national politicians, Manhattan Minerals corporate videos, archival footage, testimony from an environmental scientist and a Wall Street stockbroker, and the eyewitness account, by his son, of Godofredo's assassination.

In the ongoing history of attempts by multinational corporations to exploit Latin America's natural resources, TAMBOGRANDE is a rare success story, one demonstrating how ordinary people can defeat government and corporate collusion, and one that has already become an inspiration to other popular political movements across the continent.

Select Accolades

• Honorable Mention, Festival of Spanish and Latin American Film, Egypt 2008
• Jury Award, International Festival Dignity and Work 2007
• Festival Internacional de Cinema, Portugal 2007
• One World Human Rights Documentary Film Festival 2007
• International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) 2006