Letter from Charleroi (1965)

• 82%
• 1965
• Documentary
• Lambros Liaropoulos

Pivoting around the dusty Bois du Cazier coal mine near the town of Charleroi in Belgium, the heart-wrenching letter of a long-suffering Greek immigrant and coal miner to his silver-haired mother becomes a passionate denunciation of the back-breaking work in the dark and perilous mine shafts. It's been already eight bleak years of melancholic Sundays, eloquent silence, and cold alienation since the author of this message, interspersed with outbursts of sombre nostalgia, set foot in this strange land, and the lack of identity is still insufferable. Someday, when the town's coal deposits run out, the foreign labourers will return to their countries, leaving, once and for all, Charleroi. When will that day come?