The documentary Puta Mina takes us to the Mining Areas, to a way of understanding life. It will fill us with feelings, memories and experiences of the women of the Mining Areas.
Puta Mina combines the image and the sound so that we can glimpse the vestiges of an era and a way of living almost extinct. Now when everything is over, when the work that supported the mining areas has been put to an end, when indoor coal mines have gone down in history, Puta Mina takes us to that way of feeling and understanding life with coal as a center. This documentary will show us the interior of the coal mine. We will go down the well in the cage that the miners used to get to the “pit”, we will walk through the gallery, wide, which leads to the ramps… but we will not see any activity. Coal is no longer removed. Even so, we must not be confused, although there is no activity if there is life. The mine breathes, moves and sweats.
The light that is seen is the light of the video camera and the lights of the miners who record the images, because they have been necessary accomplices, although they are unaware of the final product that we will now see. They, the miners, have been surprised by our voices, the voice of the women of the mining areas, who have always been there, in the shade, present but not recognized. Companions of road and life, necessary but invisible.
Puta Mina gives us the opportunity to give voice, feelings, emotions, to the daily life of the mining areas.It has not been easy to capture some memories, narrate them out loud, some are spontaneously emerging, and like a chain, some call others, wake them up from our subconscious,… some make us happy, others make us smile, laugh even, others rip us off tears of grief, of rage, some, many, fill us with pride but also some, made us mute. We have turned our hearts to this audio-visual work, little by little, talk to talk, without realizing it, we shed our life, the life of the mining areas. We talk about past, present and future.
We report the evolution of life in the mining areas. At least three generations of women give voice to the different way of living, feeling, thinking and acting in the different years that have passed. From the first days of the town of Ciñera, built by the company, until these last moments when the all-powerful electricians decide our death. We speak of the town of Ciñera, for being a clear example of the power of coal. It is a village built to give shelter to miners from all over Spain. A complete group of strangers supporting one another, living together, helping each other, sharing… the origin of solidarity and companionship. And we, mothers, sisters, wives and daughters making cluster, neighborhood, tribe, family. Creating a framework of mutual support, of union before the difficulties, making the town a home, a refuge, whose feeling of security and belonging still lingers in the people who have lived there.
The eldest remember the times of hard work, of a lot of population and life. Other times we have to remember the beginning of the end, the drop in production and the exodus of population that the company encourages and promotes, the conflict on the road, the struggle for the rights of workers always present. We will hear how a cultural evolution takes place little by little, a change in the way of thinking, feeling, acting but always, in the background, we have left the legacy of the struggle for the working class, the solidarity among workers, the camaraderie. We hope that Puta Mina gives you more vision, closer to the mining areas and their inhabitants. What can be used to deprive us of preconceived ideas, to see, listen and feel with our minds and hearts willing to let ourselves go.
Thanks to everyone who is part of Puta Mina. It is a great honour to be part of the collective Puta Mina and be able to share this film with all the people who want to immerse in it with us.