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Film short abstract

The film offers an immersive and nuanced exploration of the environmental issues surrounding the potential opening of a lithium mine in France. Through a filmed ethnography, the documentary examines how energy transition policies are perceived and experienced locally.

Film synopsis

Échassières, in the Allier department: four hundred inhabitants, a few shops that are holding out, and a subsoil rich in resources. After tungsten and kaolin mining, lithium is now in the spotlight. For some, the extraction of this mineral, which is essential for electric mobility, will be the key to the region's demographic and economic survival, as well as an important step towards securing the national supply of critical raw materials. For others, intensive exploitation of the subsoil would be a reckless rush forward, generating major environmental impacts and anachronistic at a time when planetary boundaries are being exceeded. By presenting the contrasting positions of the inhabitants, the film highlights the uncertainties associated with energy transition policies in a region directly affected by their implementation.