Men of Talvivaara Mine

It is snowing on a huge steamy field. The spotlight sees orange dots moving around. Radiophone conversations: “What’s the temperature like? The new block seems to function alright, the bacteria are working, good vibes, over 40 degrees Celsius…”

The Men from Talvivaara tells about the meaningfulness of working for a mining company going from crisis to crisis. The film will follow four professionals from Kainuu working in a gloomy sci-fi setting, whose proportions make a human being but a small cog in a big machine. The state-of-the-art process of “bioheapleaching” was said to bring nickel and zinc into the world market and to give proper processing industry work for the hundreds of employees facing unemployment. What is the worth of a professional now in this mining company balancing on the brink of bankruptcy? How should they justify the meaning of the work to themselves and to those close to him, if the job is constantly in the midst of a profitability and environmental crisis.