AIFF 2011: Pebble Mine's Rio Tinto Subject of "Locked Out" Tonight 8pm Out North

The Anchorage Film Festival schedule for today is shortened compared to the weekend, starting at 6pm at Out North.  Out North has an 8pm showing of Locked Out  in the main theater that might be of interest to  anyone who wants to know more about the owners of Pebble Mine.  Whether you're pro- or anti- Pebble Mine or still making up your mind, here's a chance to learn more about the operations of one of the owners - Rio Tinto.


Rio Tinto Buys Into Alaska's "Pebble" Project -

Kennecott, through its parent company Rio Tinto, has purchased Galahad Gold Ltd.’s 19.8% share in Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd Pebble copper-gold-molybdenum prospect, making it the largest single individual shareholder.[1] In February 2007, Northern Dynasty Minerals announced it would receive the Thayer Lindsley International Discovery Award from the Prospector's and Developer's Association of Canada for discovering the 32 square mile Pebble East deposit.[2]

This was a 2007 article and I wanted to check whether Rio Tinto was still connected to Pebble Mine.  If the Pebble Mine Partnership website lists its owners, I couldn't find it.  But Wikipedia does still list Rio Tinto as a major stockholder of the Northern Dynasty the original owner, as I understand it, of the Pebble Mine project.

Important stockholders in Northern Dynasty Minerals Limited include Kennecott (19.8%) which is a wholly owned affiliate of Rio Tinto, management (13%), and Mitsubishi (9.1%). One non-executive member of the Northern Dynasty board is a Rio Tinto representative. The corporate officers and executive board members of Northern Dynasty Minerals Limited are all, also, executive board members and corporate officers of Hunter Dickinson Corporation. Northern Dynasty is one of ten public mining companies driven by Hunter Dickinson, a Vancouver-based Canadian corporation.^[35]

Like any documentary, this film should be considered a source of information which leads you to ask more questions to determine how complete, accurate, and balanced the film's claims are.  From the Locked Out's website:

This is a compelling story of 560 unionized borax miners in the desert town of Boron, California who faced off against Rio Tinto, a British-Australian multi-billion dollar global corporation, which is the 3rd largest mining company in the world. Boron, population 2000, is home to many miners and their families, and is a close knit community of small businesses, churches, the boy scouts, the little league and many single family homes where workers have lived stable middle class lives for many generations. But their jobs and way of life were threatened when Rio Tinto locked them out of work on January 31st, 2010 and replaced them with scabs. Will the workers' middle class way of life be destroyed? Who will win this David and Goliath struggle?

This is the only time this film is scheduled at the Festival.  It is one of the Documentaries in Competition - meaning it was chosen as one of the best and is eligible for an award.


Mila's Journey - another documentary in competition - begins at 6pm and the adult's only Polish animated film George the Hedgehog is from 7pm - 8pm at Out North before Locked Out.

6:00 PM		Mila's Journey Annie Perkins, Rinku Kalsy 2011 | Documentary, In Competition | 70 min.	Out North Theatre - Main
7:00 PM		George the Hedgehog [Jeż Jerzy] Wojciech Wawszczyk, Jakub Tarkowski, Tomek Lesniak 2011 | Animation, Feature | 80 min.	Out NorthGallery

Also at 8pm at the Bear Tooth is the Australian film The Wedding Party which shows again Saturday at 12pm.  I'll have another post on this film.