Sub terra

The year is 1897 and the place is the town of Lota in Chile. The story takes place in the depths of one of the largest coal mines in the world. The working days are very long, the pay is low, and the debt at the company store never ends. Conditions are deadly, and child labour is widespread. Inside one man a rebellion is slowly growing. The miners try to set up an association of their own. The film tells the question of class not through grand words but through daily life underground. The story is adapted from the collection of stories of the same name by Baldomero Lillo. It was shot in Lota, in the places where the events happened. Francisco Reyes and Paulina Gálvez appear in Marcelo Ferrari’s hundred and five minute film, a joint Chilean and Spanish production, completed in 2003.